Lilac & Carol in Sonic the Hedgehog 2
by RaceProUK
Summary: (Non-canonical parody) Carol has a new classic game she thinks is awesome, but Lilac doesn't see the appeal. However, when the two best friends are sucked into the game itself, Lilac has no choice but to play it to the end…
1. Prologue

Late at night, in a treehouse in the middle of Dragon Valley, two friends are having an argument.

"How much longer are you going to play that game?" Lilac asks.

"Come on Lilac, it's a classic!" Carol responds, her eyes fixed on the television, her thumbs playing over the controller in her hands with speed and dexterity.

"So you keep saying," Lilac states flatly. "I just don't get the appeal."

"Really?" Carol asks in disbelief. "It's a game where you run fast and collect shiny rings. I'd've thought you'd like that."

"What makes you think that?" Lilac asks, waiting for the inevitable friendly jibe.

"You like running fast and collecting shiny things," Carol teases.

 _She is, of course, absolutely right._ "I'm not bothered about collecting shiny things," Lilac fibs.

"Explain those gems under your pillow then," Carol smirks.

"Emergency funds?" Lilac offers.

"Nice try," Carol smirks.

"OK, I'll concede," Lilac sighs. "But if I want to run fast and collect shiny things, I can do that in real life. Why would I want to also do that in a videogame?"

"Because it's fun!" Carol grins.

"Makes sense, I guess," Lilac mumbles.

"No, no, no, no, no! Ancients darn it!" Carol suddenly exclaims.

"What happened?" Lilac asks.

"Lost my last life and got 'Game Over'," Carol grumbles. "I almost had him this time…"

"You'll get him next time," Lilac assures. "But right now, we should get some sleep. We have a full schedule tomorrow, and we'll need all the energy we can get."

"OK," Carol relents, shutting off the games console.

As the girls leave the den and head for the bedroom, they hear the game start up again.

"Didn't you just turn that off?" Lilac asks, confused.

"I'm sure I did," Carol answers. "I guess not."

Carol returns to the console and turns it off again. But as she turns to head to the bedroom, it reactivates itself.

"Come on Carol, stop messing around," Lilac sighs.

"I'm not messing around!" Carol protests, turning the console off a third time. "See? I'm turning it off."

The console reactivates itself again.

"I'll turn it off then," Lilac states, her patience wearing thin. She strides up to the console and turns it off. "There, done. Now, let's go to b‑"

The console reactivates itself.

"What on Avalice?" Lilac turns the console off again, only for it to reactivate itself. Lilac tries a few more times, but no matter how firmly she turns it off, the console always springs back to life.

"See?" Carol asks.

"The switch must be broken," Lilac concludes. "Pull the power."

"OK." Carol disconnects the power supply.

The console doesn't switch off.

"OK, now I'm starting to get concerned," Lilac states, her tone belying her growing nervousness.

Carol tries to disconnect the video cable, but it won't move. "Uh‑oh…"

"What?" Lilac asks.

"I can't disconnect it from the TV."

"This is starting to freak me out…"

"Me too…"

"Is it getting colder in here?"

"A little, yeah."

"I think we should‑" Lilac begins.

Suddenly, two arcs of pure energy burst from the console and wrap themselves around Lilac and Carol, immobilising them.

"What the… I can't move!" Carol exclaims, trying hard not to panic.

"Me neither!" Lilac replies, struggling to remain in control herself.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know… I'll try to think of something."

"Make it quick, Miss Heropants!"

"I'm trying!"

"Try harder! I think something bad's about to‑"

There's a sudden flash of light. When it dissipates, the girls are nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Lilac is the first to stir. "Ugh, what happened?" she asks, opening her eyes slowly. "Carol? Where are you?"

"…five more minutes…" Carol mumbles, rolling over on the grass.

Lilac stiffly props herself up on all fours and looks around at the emerald hills that surround her and her friend. "Where are we? This isn't Dragon Valley… I'm not even sure this is Avalice."

"What are you talking about?" Carol murmurs, opening her eyes. "I'm trying to… Um, where are we?" she asks as she sits up.

"I don't know," Lilac answers as she stands. "Everything looks… I'm not sure how to describe it."

Carol surveys their surroundings. "Pixellated," she concludes.

"This is going to sound crazy," Lilac admits, "but I think we might have been transported into your videogame."

"You're right, that _does_ sound crazy," Carol agrees as she stands. "It also appears to be true. How do we get out?"

"Well, I don't see any doors or anything nearby," Lilac observes. "And it seems there's only one direction we can go in, so…"

"You'll have to play _Sonic the Hedgehog 2_ after all," Carol concludes.


	2. Emerald Hill Zone

**Act 1**

"Well, let's get star‑" Lilac starts, pausing when she looks at Carol. "Um… are you OK?"

"Yeah," Carol assures. "Why do you a‑" she begins, stopping herself when she looks at Lilac. "What on Avalice? Where are your hair whips? And why do you have quills?"

" _What?_ " Lilac cries, frantically grabbing for the hair whips that are no longer present. Trying hard not to freak out, she reaches behind her head, feeling the form of the quills. " _What has happened to me?_ " Snatching a compact mirror from her pocket, Lilac looks at her reflection, and is shocked into silence.

"Um… Lilac?" Carol asks nervously. "Are you OK?"

"My ancestors," Lilac whispers in disbelief. "I'm a _hedgehog!_ "

"Wait," Carol replies. "If you're a hedgehog now, then what am I?"

"See for yourself," Lilac answers, handing the mirror to Carol.

Carol takes the mirror and nervously looks at her reflection. At first, it seems like she's about to freak out as Lilac did, but as she continues to look at herself, Carol finds she likes what she sees. "I know this whole situation is really weird, but I look _good_ as a fox!" She then looks over her shoulder. "And _two_ big bushy tails! I definitely got the better deal here!"

Lilac sinks to her knees. "I want to be a dragon again," she laments. "I don't like being a hedgehog."

"Hedgehog or dragon, you're still Little Miss Heropants," Carol assures, handing the mirror back. "Now come on and let's play this game. I bet, if we finish it, we'll get returned home and be back to normal."

"Yeah, I guess so," Lilac sighs, accepting the mirror, pocketing it as she stands. "Since you've played this game so much, you want to lead the way?"

"Sure!" Carol grins. "First, we need to get through this cluster of emerald hills, and then… erm… uh‑oh."

"Problem?"

"I can't remember how everything works here."

"I thought you knew this game?" Lilac asks, surprised.

"I do!" Carol protests. "But the knowledge is just… gone! It's like my memory's been erased!"

"Must have been a result of whatever brought us here." Lilac guesses. "So we're going in blind."

"Yeah."

"Fun. OK, let's go."

Together, Lilac the hedgehog and Carol the twin‑tailed fox set off into the Emerald Hill Zone. A few dozen feet later, they halt under three floating golden rings.

"Why do I have an urge to grab them?" Lilac thinks aloud.

"You may not look like one, but you're still a dragon at heart," Carol teases.

Lilac makes to reply, but decides not to bother. Instead, she jumps for the rings, curling into a ball automatically.

"Erm… where did they go?" Lilac asks once back on the ground. "And what was that spinning thing I did?"

"You definitely picked them up," Carol confirms. "There's a few more by that tree," she adds.

"The one with the monkey throwing coconuts?"

"Yeah."

The girls jog to the next set of rings.

"Carol, you get the rings, I'll catch a coconut so we can have a drink and a snack," Lilac decides.

"OK." Carol leaps for the rings, which again disappear on contact. "They did it again!"

"Hold on, trying to‑ ow!" Lilac is knocked back by the coconut she tried to catch, six rings spilling from her.

"You OK?" Carol asks.

"Yeah," Lilac replies.

"You sure? You're flashing."

"I'm what?"

"You've stopped now: you're back to normal. Well, back to what you were before you got hit."

Lilac looks around her. "Wait… I dropped rings: where did they go?"

"They just sorta… vanished," Carol explains.

"I hope there's more." Lilac looks up at the monkey. "Carol, does that look like a robot to you?"

"Now you mention it, yeah, it does," Carol agrees.

"Then I'm gonna smash it for making me lose my rings!" Lilac leaps at the monkey, hitting it square. The monkey explodes in a shower of sparks and shrapnel, freeing the small bird trapped inside.

"Cool!" Carol exclaims.

"Apart from the fact a helpless creature was trapped inside that thing," Lilac reminds.

"But you freed it," Carol retorts.

"Yeah." Lilac looks towards the next group of trees, which sits atop a small plateau. "And there's a hornet robot. I'm gonna smash that one too, and if an animal is freed, then we know smashing robots is a good thing."

Lilac runs towards the hornet before Carol can respond, and leaps up to the small floating platform the hornet is flying over. However, as she lands, she is struck by an energy projectile the hornet fired.

The world freezes in place as Lilac is vaporised.

" _Lilac!_ " Carol wails.

The world fades to black.

* * *

"What happened?" Lilac asks. "Are we back where we started?"

"You died," Carol answers. "And yes, we're back where we started."

"But if I died, why am I now alive?"

"We're in a game, remember?"

"So…"

"You have more than one life."

"Oh. How many do I have?"

"Three. Well, two now."

"Huh." Lilac takes a deep breath. "Let's try this again, and not die this time."

The girls set off, collect the rings, and dispatch the first two robots with ease. And within moments, they're atop the small plateau.

"Hey Carol?" Lilac asks. "Why is there a monitor here? It's on, but it's not plugged in anywhere."

"What's on the screen?" Carol replies, the rabbit she just freed from another monkey robot hopping away happily.

"Some sort of flickering purple ball," Lilac answers.

"That's‑"

"‑weird. And yes, I think we can assume that's our default reaction from now on."

"Smash it open?"

"What will that do?"

Carol shrugs.

With a shrug of her own, Lilac jumps on the monitor, smashing it to pieces. A second later, she's surrounded by a pulsing purple orb of pure energy. "Whoa!" Lilac exclaims. "What is this?"

"Looks like a shield," Carol guesses.

"I like it. I feel… protected."

"Can I have one?"

"Not from this monitor," Lilac answers, gently kicking the remnants with the toe of her boot. "But there was this one, so there may be more. Anyway, we'd better get moving: I have this weird sense that there's a time limit in effect."

"Wanna race?" Carol challenges.

"To where?" Lilac asks.

"To wherever we're going!" Carol grins.

"Eh, why not?" Lilac smiles. "Though without your bike, I'll win."

"Somehow, I get the feeling I won't need my bike," Carol smirks, twirling her twin tails.

"This'll be interesting," Lilac smirks back. "Catch me if you can!" she taunts, curling up for a Dragon Boost. Except, she doesn't Dragon Boost: instead, she curls up and revs on the spot for a moment, then takes off at high speed, dashing off the plateau, landing on her feet, and running straight into a robot carp leaping over a bridge, spilling all her rings.

"That was so cool!" Carol chuckles to herself. "I wonder if I can do that?"

A second later, Carol flies past Lilac at top speed as the former dragon is picking up the rings she lost.

"No way!" Lilac gasps. "She can spin dash too? Well, she's still going to lose!"

With a spin dash of her own, Lilac sets off in pursuit of her friend. Over the next minute or so, the two pals race each other on different routes, bouncing off springs, leaping spikes, running corkscrews and loop‑de‑loops, and smashing robots and collecting rings on the way. Soon, they reunite at the top of a small cliff, Lilac running up the sheer vertical surface, Carol leaping the gap from the plateau before it.

"I'm gonna win!" Carol exclaims, momentum seemingly giving her the advantage as she closes on the signpost a short distance away.

"No, I'm gonna win!" Lilac declares, spin dashing her way to victory, the signpost spinning as she passes it.

"Aw, no fair!" Carol pouts as she catches her victorious friend.

"You could have spin dashed too," Lilac winks.

"I thought I had enough momentum."

"Maybe next time. So, we're at the end of what I guess is the level. What now?"

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"The world fading to black is getting old already," Carol sighs. "At least this time you didn't die."

"I did lose my shield though," Lilac reports. "And I get the feeling I don't have my rings anymore either."

"At least we're somewhere new," Carol observes. "Or another part of this zone, at least."

"So, what have we learnt?" Lilac asks.

"Smashing robots frees little critters," Carol starts.

"Rings stop you dying when you're hit," Lilac continues.

"Smashing a monitor gives you a power‑up like that shield," Carol adds.

"Some gave me rings instead," Lilac informs.

"And while we don't have our normal abilities, we do have that spin dash thing," Carol finishes.

"Which is actually pretty useful," Lilac teases.

"Yeah, yeah," Carol dismisses. "I'll win this time!"

"You can try!" Lilac taunts playfully.

With matching spin dashes, the girls take off in another race, this time both electing to use the lower of the two available routes. Over the next minute or so, the lead changes several times, yet the two friends are never more than a few feet from each other.

Suddenly, Lilac skids to a halt beside a lamppost with a yellow base and a red orb on top. Carol, however, doesn't stop, and runs off the ledge, straight into a monkey robot. "Yeow!" she cries as she flies back onto the ledge, flashing for a few seconds before returning to normal.

Lilac tries to suppress the urge to laugh, but fails. "I am _so_ glad I stopped now!" she chuckles.

"At least I didn't lose any rings," Carol counters, poking her tongue out. "Wait… Let me try something." Carol jogs away from the ledge, then runs off it at speed, again hitting the monkey robot and getting knocked back on the ledge. "Huh."

"Hm?"

"It appears I can't die."

"Then you're taking point from now on," Lilac smirks.

"Hey!" Carol snaps back. "I may not be able to die, but it still hurts the same!"

"Sorry," Lilac apologises, bringing herself back under control. "Know what this is?" she asks, pointing to the lamppost.

"No idea," Carol admits. "Try touching it?"

Lilac touches the lamppost; the red orb spins around its mounting and starts flashing yellow. "Is that it?"

"Touch it again."

Lilac touches the lamppost again; nothing happens. "Guess that _was_ it."

"Then let's get back to our race!" Carol exclaims, backing towards the ledge.

"Carol, look out!" Lilac cries.

But it's too late: Carol steps backwards off the ledge. Lilac dashes to the edge to try to save her friend, but she can only watch helplessly as Carol impales herself on a set of spikes.

" _Carol!_ " Lilac cries in despair, knowing her friend is surely de‑

"Well, that was dumb," Carol comments.

"Carol?" Lilac asks, looking up to see her friend hovering down to her, the vixen's twin tails spinning like helicopter blades. "Carol, you're OK!" Lilac exclaims, relieved.

"So it turns out I _can_ die," Carol concludes as she lands. "Did the world go black?"

"No," Lilac answers.

"Hmm… so me dying doesn't reset our progress," Carol surmises.

"But me dying does," Lilac adds.

"Does that mean I have infinite lives?" Carol asks.

"Well, there is one way to find out…"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Of course I'm kidding!" Lilac assures.

"Good," Carol nods. "Because you have _no idea_ how much it hurts to be turned into a kebab. And trust me, you _don't_ want to find out."

"I'll take your word for it."

With two careful jumps, the girls smash the monkey robot Carol ran into, land beside the spikes Carol impaled herself on, then resume their race. Though they do take care in the next cave to avoid the spikes that pop out of the floor at regular intervals. Eventually, they both make it safely to the final lamppost.

"I'm gonna win this time for sure!" Carol declares triumphantly, a boast supported by her being ahead. But as she gets close to the silver chamber ahead, she hits an invisible barrier and falls on her tails. "Ow! What on Avalice?"

"Why did you stop?" Lilac asks, halting right behind her friend.

"There's some sort of barrier in the way!" Carol explains.

"That's silly," Lilac dismisses. "There's nothing‑ ow!" she exclaims as she walks into the invisible barrier.

"Told you," Carol smirks.

"Yeah, yeah." Lilac rubs her nose to soothe the mild pain she's feeling. "Am I talking funny?"

"Little bit."

"Hm." Lilac then spots something a short distance away. "Is that some sort of car rolling towards us? Why does it have a drill on the front?"

"Maybe you should ask that guy," Carol suggests, pointing to an egg‑shaped one‑man craft descending towards the car.

The girls watch as the craft slots neatly into the car as it passes by them, its occupant a rotund bald gentleman with a luxuriate orange moustache. Lilac approaches the car to try and talk to the man, but the car drives off before she gets the chance.

"That was rude," Lilac comments.

"He's turning around and coming back," Carol notices.

"Right towards us…" Lilac states nervously. "He's not slowing down… He's grinning like a maniac _!_ "

"He's going to try and run us over, isn't he?" Carol asks.

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Lilac answers with determination.

Carol joins Lilac standing defiantly in front of the approaching madman in his car. At just the right moment, the girls leap and bounce off the top of the car, landing safely behind it. The car then turns and drives directly at the girls again.

"Is that all he's going to do?" Lilac asks.

Another well‑timed jump, another bounce, and the madman slews the car around a third time.

"This isn't much of a fight," Carol comments flatly.

"You can say that again," Lilac agrees.

For the third time, Lilac and Carol jump and bounce off the car, though this time Carol scores two hits to Lilac's one. The madman turns his car around again, but this time, instead of just driving at the girls, he fires the drill cone at them.

"Yow!" Carol exclaims as she leaps the flying cone. "Didn't expect that!"

But Lilac isn't listening: she's too busy attacking the car yet again. With the eighth hit, the car finally breaks. Small explosions ripple throughout the chassis, the wheels fly off across the grass, and the car slides to a halt.

"Now maybe we can have a little chat!" Lilac directs to the madman. "Firstly, where the‑ Hey, where are you going?" she asks as the madman's craft separates from the car and takes off. As the madman departs, Carol can just about hear him mutter "I hate that hedgehog!"

"That's what you get when you mess with the legendary Carol Tea!" Carol shouts at the retreating madman. "And her friend!" she adds hastily when she notices Lilac's disapproving look.

"Not your best effort," Lilac sighs. "Come on, let's see what this big grey thing is over there."

The girls approach the silver chamber cautiously, though as they get nearer, their confidence the device is benign grows.

"What do you think it is?" Lilac asks.

Carol places an ear on the side of the chamber. "I can hear… animals trapped inside!"

"We have to free them!" Lilac declares.

"I _knew_ you were gonna say that," Carol teases.

"Carol, stop being annoying and help me find a way to open this thing."

"OK, OK, don't get your hair whips in a‑" Carol stops herself in response to Lilac's piercing stare. "Sorry…"

"Just find a way to open this prison," Lilac growls.

For a few moments, the girls look for an exploitable weakness, but find nothing. Carol then spots a big yellow button on top of the chamber. "Hmm… I wonder…" Leaping on top of the chamber, Carol climbs onto the switch, her weight proving sufficient to push it in fully.

The walls of the chamber blow out, freeing the animals trapped within.

"Hey, it worked!" Carol exclaims in pleasant surprise, jumping down as the animals scatter and frolic in the grass.

"Carol. A word. Now."

"What's up?" Carol asks, turning to find Lilac staring angrily at her, the hedgehog's face blackened with soot. "Oh…"

"Sometimes Carol, you can be a total‑"

The world fades to black.


	3. Chemical Plant Zone

**Act 1**

"What on Avalice?" Lilac asks, a little annoyed. "Where are we now? And where did all the grass go?"

"If I had to guess, I'd say we've passed the first zone," Carol informs. "This is the second zone. And from the steel and stench, it's some sort of chemical plant."

Lilac sniffs the air. "Ew!" she exclaims. "What kind of chemical plant _is_ this? Smells like month‑old garbage soaked in raw sewage!"

"It's making me nauseous," Carol admits.

"Me too," Lilac agrees. "And yet… I have this urge to go through this zone, rather than turning around and finding a different way."

"It's not like we have an option," Carol informs, knocking on another invisible barrier preventing them retreating.

"How many of these zones are there?"

"No idea."

"Memory still missing?"

"Yep."

"Great." Lilac closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, careful to only breathe through her mouth. "OK, let's do it to it."

"Let's what to what?" Carol asks, confused.

"I have no idea why I said that," Lilac sighs.

The pair set off, grabbing a three rings as they jump on top of a moving platform in front of a quarter‑pipe, then grabbing three more from above the floor just past the ramp.

"Carol?" Lilac asks as they look over the next section.

"Hm?"

"Do you see what I see?"

"The snaking yellow‑topped piping?"

"Almost like they were built for speed…"

Carol pauses a moment. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Spin dash and see how much speed we can build?"

"Yup."

"Then on three," Lilac decides. "One," she counts as they crouch down.

"Two," Carol continues as they rev up.

"Three!"

Together, the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog and wildcat‑cum‑kitsune blast off at top speed, riding the rises and falls of the yellow pathway, then down the following slope, building speed all the way. Still side‑by‑side, they flash around a loop‑de‑loop before plummeting straight down to a quarter‑pipe that leads directly to a red spring. Unable to even slow down, they hit the spring, roll back through the loop, then down a shorter slope, before hitting another quarter‑pipe that catapults them to the ceiling. Another quarter‑pipe sends them horizontal again, then the ceiling just… stops. Out of control, Lilac flies through the air and into a wall, Carol sandwiching her a split‑second later.

Badly winded, the two friends fall onto a ring monitor in an undignified heap, Lilac pinning Carol under her.

"Ow," Lilac groans. "That was a bad idea."

"You can say that again," Carol groans in response.

"Ow," Lilac groans. "That was a bad idea."

"Funny," Carol replies deadpan.

"Are you OK?" Lilac asks.

"A little sore, but that's it," Carol reports.

"Same here." Lilac pauses a moment. "I should probably get off you now."

"Yep."

Lilac rolls of Carol, landing on the floor next to the monitor, grunting as the impact triggers a fresh jolt of pain. "That was also a bad idea."

"We can rest for a bit?" Carol suggests.

"We should keep moving," Lilac decides, standing up.

"But I'm just getting comfortable," Carol yawns, curling up to snooze. "It's nice and warm on this monitor."

Lilac kicks the monitor hard, smashing it open.

Carol yelps as she hits the floor. "Point taken," she sighs, picking herself up. "Y'know, that wreckage could have killed me," she observes sharply.

"And you have infinite lives," Lilac reminds flatly.

"And you're being uncharacteristically mean," Carol retorts.

"Sorry," Lilac apologies. "The smell's really getting up my nose, and it's pissing me off."

"Believe me, no matter how much you're smelling it, I'm smelling it far more," Carol comforts. "Feli‑ Vulpine senses. Yet I'm still calm."

Lilac sighs, then closes her eyes and recites a calming mantra she learned while in the Red Scarves. "Ah, that's better," she smiles, opening her eyes again. "Got my _qi_ smoothed out. So, what's that?" she asks, pointing at a plug protruding from the floor.

"Looks like a way forward to me," Carol answers. "If we can break it open, there's a pipe underneath that leads deep into the level."

Lilac follows the line of the pipe as it disappears into the distance. "Just one question: how do you know nothing will flow through it and drown us while we're in it?"

"I doubt we'll be in it long enough for that to be a problem," Carol shrugs.

Lilac makes to argue, but decides not to. "OK," she agrees.

Carol breaks the plug with a Spin Attack, then the two friends jump into the pipe and ride its length to another part of the level. At the end, they're ejected through a hatch, which closes to reveal a red spring that catapults both friends high into the air and onto a platform.

"Woah," Lilac murmurs, staggering slightly. "All those turns have made me dizzy…"

"What are you talking about?" Carol asks, unaffected. "That pipe was so cool!"

"Glad you think soaaaaaaaah!" Lilac cries as she staggers off the platform. "Woaoaoah!" she adds as she springs back up before landing on the platform with an "Oof!"

Carol tries to hold it in, but it's too funny not to laugh. "That was _hilarious!_ " she chortles, not looking where she's going. And inevitably, she does exactly the same as Lilac, landing on top of her friend.

"Carol…" Lilac groans.

"Sorry," Carol apologises.

"Though it does make a change for you to be on top, I guess," Lilac observes.

"I'm just thankful I didn't impale myself on your quills," Carol replies. "I should probably get off you now."

"Yep."

Carol rolls off Lilac and onto her feet, then helps her friend up. The pair then continue through the level, smashing a couple of robots before running down a spring‑laden snake of yellow‑topped piping that leads down a short slope, over some undulations, down a longer slope, through two loops, down another short slope, and finally one more loop. The girls build up so much speed, boosted by a set of spinning rubber wheels, that they launch off the quarter‑pipe after the last loop and slam hard into the ceiling, sticking momentarily before falling back to the ground with a thud.

"We gotta stop with the 'gotta go fast'," Lilac groans, slowly and stiffly picking herself up.

"Why don't Sonic and Tails have this problem?" Carol asks, accepting Lilac's assistance.

"Who?"

"The original game characters, who's places we've taken."

"So I'm basically Purple Sonic."

"In this place, yes."

"Right." Lilac looks around. "Another pipe," she points out.

Carol points to the robot clinging to the wall behind the plug, firing energy projectiles. "This one's guarded."

"Not for long!" With a well‑timed jump, Lilac smashes the robot and the plug in succession, then drops into the pipe, Carol following a moment later. And after a short pipe ride, they burst through another hatch with a spring, get catapulted through a line of rings, and land gracefully beside the spring.

"I think we're getting used to the physics here," Lilac observes.

"And not a moment too soon," Carol agrees.

A short sprint leads to a row of four cubes that descend to form a staircase. Then one final Spin Dash along some more yellow‑topped piping takes the girls to the end‑of‑level signpost, which Carol gets to first.

"Woo!" Carol celebrates as Lilac passes the sign.

"Congrats," Lilac returns.

"Hey, this sign has my face on it!" Carol grins. "Well, my fox face."

"And the one in Emerald Hill had my face on it," Lilac recalls. "My hedgehog face…" she adds quietly.

"They must show who won," Carol concludes. "We'll get our normal faces back," she assures Lilac when she notices her friend's sad expression.

"I hope so," Lilac sighs.

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

" _Phewwwwwee!_ " Lilac exclaims, desperately fanning in front of her nose to drive the intense stench away. "It smells so bad I can barely breathe!"

At first, Carol doesn't reply, as she's trying desperately not to vomit. Gagging for breath, she ties her scarf firmly over her nose and mouth, managing to reduce the smell just enough to make it bearable. "I've never been happier… I kept this scarf," she gasps, recovering her breath quickly.

"Maybe I should have kept mine," Lilac thinks aloud.

"We both know you would never have kept your scarf," Carol reminds.

"You're right," Lilac admits. "Still… Let's get moving. The quicker we get to the end, the quicker we can escape this fœtid stink."

The girls set off in haste, and are soon rolling down a gargantuan downhill slope, building up so much speed that they are thrown dozens of feet into the air by the ramp at the end, landing on a small platform with a leaf spring at one end. The speed they achieve is so great that neither Lilac nor Carol can refrain from screaming, partly in terror, but mostly in joy, the adrenaline flooding their systems giving them a real buzz.

" _Wahoohoo!_ " Lilac whoops once they're safely on the platform. " _That was amazing!_ "

" _That was so cool!_ " Carol agrees. " _I wanna do it again!_ "

" _Me too!_ " Lilac squeals. She then clears her throat and recovers her composure. "I mean, we should proceed with caution," she continues. "We don't know what other hazards lie ahead."

"So you're not going to roll down the next big slope at high speed?" Carol asks cheekily.

"Of course I will," Lilac admits. "I'm just going to do it with caution, s'all."

"If you say so," Carol smirks. "Come on, let's keep going."

Using the leaf spring to bridge the gap, the girls continue on a brief climb to another plug, which they break to access the pipe underneath. The pipe spits them out a short distance away at the top of another huge downhill slope, where again the girls roll and build up an incredible speed, flashing up through two loops at the bottom before being flung into the air and through a cloud of rings, then landing gracefully, their buzz from before renewed.

After taking a moment to calm down again, the girls continue down a shaft and to another plug, which they break like before. This time, the pipe takes them just below the surface of a pink… substance that has flooded the lowest levels of the chemical plant. And when they're ejected from the pipe, the girls land next to the hatch close enough to the substance to hear the lapping as the currents swirls through it.

"Hnnngh!" Lilac grunts, pinching her nose hard, barely able to stop herself dry‑heaving. "That _stench_ … it's so… If it gets worse, I'm gonna lose my lunch!"

"Less talk, more get outta here!" Carol replies.

"Agreed."

The girls set off once more, desperate for a path up and away from the pink stink, but no such path is available. After a couple of ramps, a loop, a quarter‑pipe, and a lamppost, where they repeat their Emerald Hill experiment with the same results, they pause before a door.

"Well, so much for this path," Lilac sighs.

"Unless it opens when we get closer," Carol theorises.

"Worth a shot."

The girls take a step forward, only to be snatched by a robot arachnid that dropped from the ceiling. Holding the girls firm in its grasp, the robot ascends to the ceiling, where it comes to rest.

"Ancients darn it!" Lilac exclaims in frustration. "I can't move!"

"Me neither!" Carol exclaims in return. "Darn thing's got a grip tighter than a pissed off Hanna Skarlett!"

"But without the shredding claws, thank the Ancients," Lilac replies. "Well, I guess we're stuck here until time runs out or some‑"

Suddenly, the robot explodes, throwing the girls to the floor, the rings they collected scattering in all directions.

"‑thing," Lilac groans, flashing for a few seconds.

"If I ever meet the guy who built that thing, I'm gonna beat the crap outta him," Carol vows, her voice stressed from the pain.

"Give him one for me too," Lilac requests.

Slowly, the girls rise to their feet, then stretch out and massage their aching muscles.

"We really should have spotted that robot," Lilac observes.

"We let our guard down," Carol agrees. "We can't do that again: next time, we may not be so lucky."

"Let's continue."

As Carol guessed, the door opens as the girls approach it. A brief snaking descent follows, and after using a pair of moving platforms to cross a section of pink fluid covering a bank of spikes, the girls are propelled along a yellow‑topped pipe, through a door that closes behind them, and onto a set of yellow cubes that slide around each other.

"Did the people who built this place _ever_ read a health and safety manual?" Lilac asks as she and Carol do what they can to not fall or be crushed.

Carol is about to reply, but a sound gives her pause. Looking down, she sees the pink fluid is rising towards them. "The goop's rising!"

"Climb!" Lilac commands.

With haste, the girls climb as quick as they can, but not quickly enough. The pink fluid rises and submerges them, but only for a few moments as the girls make it to the top of the shaft and the safety of a wide platform.

"Oh man!" Carol moans, dripping wet. "I hope this stuff washes out. Lilac?"

Lilac doesn't respond: she's too busy vomiting over the edge of the platform.

"When you're ready," Carol sighs, shaking vigorously in a semi‑successful attempt to dry her fur.

"I think… it's all out now," Lilac gasps, recovering her breath. "Let's get out of here."

Together, the girls proceed with caution, Lilac looking a little pale, though her colour slowly returns as they silently make their way to the end of the level. On the way, they are propelled along more yellow‑topped pipe and through two loops, but it's no longer fun. And after crossing two more gaps, they find themselves in an arena with a solid platform in the middle, flanked by platforms that regularly flip out of the way.

"Oh great, him again," Lilac sighs as the moustachioed madman returns in a new machine. "What are you going to do this time, fatman?"

The madman doesn't reply. Instead, he pipes fluid from below the platforms and collected it in a small canister above his head.

"Fine, don't answer," Lilac continues. "Carol? It's time to kick tail."

"Aww yeah!" Carol agrees.

Working together, the girls score four quick hits on the madman's vehicle. In response, the madman extends a mechanical arm with the now full canister at the end.

"He's gonna drop that crap on us!" Carol warns.

"He can try!" Lilac replies, dodging the vile contents when they're dropped, but getting hit by the splash, losing her rings. "Ancients darn it!" she exclaims, snatching up a few rings before the rest disappear. "You'll pay for that!"

The madman darts to the other side of the arena, but before he can refill the canister, the girls score four more quick hits, crippling the machine. The arm and pipework fall off the machine, leaving just the flyer the girls saw in Emerald Hill. The madman then turns tail and flees, muttering "I hate that hedgehog!" as he departs.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish!" Carol grins as she turns towards the silver capsule in the distance… only to fall through the floor where sections had just flipped out the way.

"Carol!" Lilac exclaims, dashing to the edge, where she can only watch her friend sink into the murky pink depths. "Of all the times to fall to your death, you do it _after_ we defeat the boss… You want to know what's really weird about this though? Watching you drown when you're also right beside me."

"It's even weirder watching yourself drown," Carol admits, having just landed next to her friend and joined her in peering over the edge. "That makes two deaths for me to your one."

"And that's three too many. I can't wait until we're back home and normal rules apply," Lilac comments.

"Me too," Carol agrees. "Wanna break open the Egg Prison?"

"Egg Prison?"

"That big silver thing over there."

"Sure. How do you know what it's called?"

"It's weird‑" Carol starts.

"Obviously."

"Shush. It's weird, but slowly, my memories of this game are coming back. Nothing helpful, sadly, just useless trivia at the moment."

"Still, it must mean we're on the right track." Lilac gets up, jumps over the gap, sprints up to the Egg Prison, hits the big yellow button, and frees the animals trapped within.

Carol joins her a moment later. "Two down… no idea how many to go."

"We're making progress at least," Lilac observes. "I just hope the next zone is‑"

The world fades to black.


	4. Aquatic Ruin Zone

**Act 1**

"Can I _please_ be allowed to finish my sentences‽" Lilac cries out to no‑one in particular.

"Look on the bright side," Carol comments. "This zone doesn't stink. In fact, it smells quite nice."

Lilac looks around her, taking in the grass and decayed pillars as far as the eye can see. She then takes a deep breath through her nose, savouring the gentle dew‑like scent that permeates the air. "Ah, that's _so_ much better!" she sighs contentedly. "I wish we could hang around."

"But we have to keep moving if we want to get home," Carol reminds.

"Yeah," Lilac sighs.

The girls set off, collecting the three rings close by, only to find their path blocked by a pillar that rises as they get close to it.

"That was‑" Carol begins.

"Yes, it was," Lilac interrupts. "Let's see…" Lilac jumps, but just as she nears the top, an arrow strikes her, causing her to fall back to the ground and lose her rings.

"You OK?" Carol asks, recollecting the rings.

"I took an arrow to the knee," Lilac replies flatly, rubbing her left knee. "I'm just glad I had rings. Where on Avalice did that arrow come from, anyway?"

Carol looks back to where they came from, spotting a pillar up a small rise with a hatch in the side. "Someone's booby‑trapped some of the pillars," she concludes, watching another arrow emerge.

"Ah. At least the one blocking our way has collapsed," Lilac observes.

The girls resume their journey, electing to take the lower path when the choice presents itself. A leaf spring bounces them over a pond, after which Lilac skids to a halt, Carol stopping a few feet further along. Curious, Lilac returns to the pond, keeping an eye on a red robot that had burst out of the wall as they passed overhead.

"Lilac?" Carol asks, jogging back to see what her friend is doing.

"Hm?" Lilac responds. "Oh, just checking something." Lilac kneels at the edge of the pond, then leans forward and sniffs thoroughly. Gingerly, she sinks her cupped hands into the water, and pours a small amount into her mouth. "It's _fresh!_ " she declares before dunking her head and drinking deeply.

Carol is about to dive in, but she notices the robot has turned, and is heading directly for Lilac. So instead she jumps over her friend, smashes the robot, and splashes down on the other side of the pond, where she starts lapping up water.

A cog bounces off Lilac's head, followed immediately by the rabbit previously interred in the now‑destroyed robot. "Ow," she mutters, rubbing her head.

"You're welcome," Carol winks before resuming her lapping.

After another minute, both have slaked their thirst. "Ah, I feel so much better," Lilac sighs, contented.

"Me too," Carol agrees.

"Come on, let's continue."

The girls walk up to the edge of a cliff a short distance past the pond.

"Looks like the lower levels are submerged," Lilac concludes, peering over the edge. "This zone must be some sort of aquatic ruin."

"I'd prefer to stay dry," Carol opines.

"Fair enough," Lilac agrees.

Jumping over the gap onto the platform opposite, the girls set off in a run up a gradual slope, Lilac just ahead… and running straight into another drillbot bursting out of the wall.

" _Yow!_ " Lilac cries as she flies backwards, her rings scattering yet again. "OK, that's it," she declares, smashing the drillbot and collecting some of her spilt rings. She then spin dashes forwards past Carol, who had stopped to check Lilac is OK. Carol shrugs, and spin dashes after her friend.

Lilac leads the way through the tall loop, smashing through two more drillbots that burst from the wall directly in the path of her rolling Spin Attack, and splashing into a pool on the other side. The water barely slows her down, so she hits the vertical wall at the other end hard, stopping in an instant. A moment later, Lilac feels the platform she's on start to drop. Instincts kick in, and she jumps out of the water to safety.

Carol is less fortunate. Trailing Lilac, she hits the same wall and stops dead, only to sink into the flooded lower ruins.

After a few moments, Lilac starts to worry. _Where is she?_ Returning to where the platform sank, she looks down to see Carol atop a sunken ruin, far too deep to jump out. With both girls underwater, they're unable to speak, but Carol's expression makes it obvious the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune is rather annoyed. Lilac adopts an apologetic expression, to which Carol rolls her eyes.

A '5' appears above Carol's head.

Panic sets in. Carol looks around frantically, desperate to find an air source.

A '4' appears above Carol's head.

Carol dashes back and forth, only to find no salvation.

A '3' appears above Carol's head.

Carol halts, falling further as the platform she's on collapses.

A '2' appears above Carol's head.

Carol spots a set of rising bubbles. Her spirits lift.

A '1' appears above Carol's head.

Carol realises the bubbles aren't big enough.

A '0' appears above Carol's head.

Carol sits down and accepts her fate.

Carol drowns. A moment later, a large bubble of breathable air appears and floats above her body.

Silently, Lilac climbs back out the pond to find Carol waiting for her on dry land.

"Let me guess: a breathable bubble appeared just after I drowned," Carol guesses.

"Yep," Lilac confirms.

"Typical."

"Hm?"

"If I had a crystal for every time that happened when I was playing this game, I'd be able to buy a superbike," Carol explains flatly.

"At least you have infinite lives," Lilac reminds.

"Does it not bother you, watching me die?" Carol asks, her eyes flashing with anger.

"Of course it bothers me!" Lilac assures. "Why would I want to watch you die?"

"You don't sound bothered."

"The fact you always come back kinda lessens the impact."

"When we get back home, I won't be immortal, y'know."

"I know."

"If I die, I won't come back."

"I know."

The two friends remain silent for a few moments, Carol wearing an expression of anger and frustration, with Lilac's remaining neutral. Suddenly, Lilac leaps over Carol and bounces off a drillbot approaching from behind.

"Thanks," Carol murmurs, a hint of a smile appearing.

"My pleasure," Lilac replies. "Come on, let's get to the end of the level."

"OK," Carol agrees.

The two girls proceed through the rest of the level without significant incident, Lilac passing the sign first.

"Lilac?"

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get mad at you."

"It's OK, don't worry about it."

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"This would be the second half of this aquatic ruin then," Lilac concludes.

"Looks like each zone is split into two parts," Carol adds.

"Question is: how many zones are there?" Lilac asks.

"Sorry," Carol apologises. "That memory's still being blocked."

"This'd be a lot easier if you could remember everything."

"I get the feeling that's why my memories are being blocked: to make things harder."

"Hm."

"Lilac?"

"Hm?"

"Can we stay out of the water this time? I don't want to drown again."

"Sure. We'll take the high route: there shouldn't be any water then."

The girls set off, collecting six rings on their way down two large steps to the top of a tall cliff.

Carol peeks over the edge. "If we fall here, we're in the water for a while," she concludes.

"Good thing these swinging platforms are here then," Lilac informs. "They lead to a ledge over there."

The girls ride the swinging platforms to the ledge in question, where they swiftly dispatch the drillbot patrolling it. Leaping over the next small gap, the girls then ride three leaf springs up successive platforms until they reach a seemingly unbridgeable gap.

"Do you think if we spin dash fast enough, we can leap the gap?" Lilac asks as they halt near the edge of the ledge.

"Dunno," Carol answers, halting just in front of Lilac. "But‑"

The platform Lilac and Carol are standing on collapses, dropping them onto another platform below.

"Ow," the girls groan in unison, Lilac once again on top of Carol, pinning her face down.

"You know that thing you always say when we end up like this?" Carol asks.

"You mean when I say 'I should probably get off you now'?" Lilac asks back.

"You just _had_ to say it," Carol sighs.

"Though I should probably get off you now," Lilac states.

Carol says nothing, instead choosing to bury her face in the grass.

Lilac rolls off Carol and lays beside her on her back. "At least we didn't fall far," she offers as comfort. "And we're still dry."

"I hate this game," Carol mumbles, muffled by the grass.

"Want to rest a moment?"

"Yep."

"Let me know when you're ready?"

"Yep."

A couple of minutes later, Carol pushes herself to her feet. "OK, let's carry on."

"Feeling better?" Lilac asks as she too stands.

"Yeah," Carol smiles. "It's just that you've landed on top of me so many times, it's gotten old."

"I'll do what I can to not fall on you again," Lilac promises.

The girls ride another swinging platform across the chasm, then together, they spin dash down the next undulating slope… only to drop off a large step, and hit the ground running straight into a drillbot breaking out of a wall. Flying back, with Lilac's rings scattering, both her and Carol hit a red spring that catapults them around the loop‑de‑loop, down another slope, and into water. At the bottom, they hit another leaf spring which bounces them over a gap and another drillbot. At the last second, they leap out of the water to clear another red spring… and run straight into another drillbot at the top of a cliff.

"OK, that was just annoying," Lilac declares, recovering a couple of her scattered rings before turning the drillbot into scrap metal.

"Look on the bright side," Carol offers, peering over the edge of the cliff. "That bot saved us from falling in the water."

The girls use a couple of pillar tops to cross the water, and continue on their way. Soon, after wading through a shallow but wide pool, they find a couple of springs that return them to the highest route. From there, they proceed to the invisible wall before the Egg Prison without getting their feet wet again.

"I'm glad that's over," Carol sighs with relief. "I wonder what‑"

The ground starts shaking beneath their feet.

"What on Avalice?" Lilac exclaims as two pillars rise from the ground, trapping the girls between them.

"Hate to be cliché, but I've got a bad feeling about this," Carol comments as the pillars stop rising.

Lilac looks up. "They're too high to jump on top of now… Is that that madman again?" she asks, pointing to the now familiar craft descending towards them, this time augmented by a pair of rocket boosters and a massively oversized red and yellow mallet.

Carol looks up. "Seems he's learnt his lesson: he's staying out of reach."

"How are we going to get up to him?" Lilac asks.

The madman drifts over to a pillar and hits the top with his mallet. An arrow shoots out of the second head from the top, and sticks in the same head on the opposite pillar.

"I have an idea." Carol leaps up onto the arrow, then leaps again and hits the craft. "Hey, it worked!"

"My turn!" Lilac jumps for the same arrow… only for it to fall before she lands on it. "Darn it!" she exclaims as she drops to the ground. As she lands, the madman strikes the top of the pillar: an arrow shoots out the lowest face, straight into Lilac. " _Ow!_ " she cries, flying backwards as her rings scatter yet again.

"Want me to handle this one?" Carol offers, recovering a few of the scattered rings.

"I have a better idea," Lilac decides, watching madman drift back to the first pillar. "Think you can get on top of one of the pillars?"

"Sure!" Carol waits a moment until an arrow strikes the second face from the top again, then wastes no time using it as a platform to get on top of the pillar. "Now what?"

"Watch out for the hammer!" Lilac warns.

Carol looks up just in time to see the mallet swinging for her. On instinct, she leaps to dodge, and scores a second hit on the madman's machine, bouncing back onto the pillar. "Two hits, six to go!"

Lilac uses the arrow stuck in the first pillar to leap onto the top, then dodges the mallet to score hit number three before returning to the pillar top. "Hey, this is so much easier!"

The girls take it in turns to dodge the mallet and score hits. When Carol lands the eighth hit, the pillars descend back into the ground. Explosions ripple across the surface of the madman's machine, causing the mallet and boosters to disintegrate and fall away. "I hate that hedgehog!" the madman cries as he makes his escape.

"See ya later, egghead!" Carol waves from the ground. "Lilac, do you wanna open the Egg Prison?" she asks, looking around. "Lilac? Where are you?"

" _Freaking out up here!_ " Lilac calls down from mid‑air.

Carol looks up to see Lilac balancing on the edge of… nothing. "What on Avalice?"

"Get me down from here!" Lilac demands, on the verge of panic. "I don't like this!"

"How?" Carol asks.

" _How on Avalice should I know‽_ " Lilac snaps. "Just do _something!_ "

"OK, OK, don't get your hair whips in a‑" Carol begins. "On second thoughts, I'm gonna shut up and bust the Egg Prison," she decides.

"How will that help?" Lilac asks.

"Well, it'll end the level at least," Carol explains. "And some stuff gets reset when a level ends, so hopefully it'll reset… whatever's affecting you right now."

"…good point," Lilac admits.

Carol leaps atop the Egg Prison and hits the big yellow button. "Did that do anything?" she asks as the critters trapped inside flee in freedom.

"Still up here," Lilac sighs, beginning to calm down as she realises she's in no immediate danger. "I just hope you're right, and I start the next level on‑"

The world fades to black.


	5. Casino Night Zone

**Act 1**

" _Solid ground!_ " Lilac cries in sweet relief, dropping onto all fours, then lying flat and stroking the ground.

"So dignified," Carol smirks sarcastically. But Lilac isn't listening, so Carol takes the opportunity to survey their surroundings. "When did it become night?" she asks.

"It's too bright to be night," Lilac comments.

"I'm pretty sure the sky being black means it's night," Carol informs.

Lilac rolls over and looks at the sky. "Ah, it _is_ night," she observes.

"And the place is lit up like a casino," Carol adds, looking around. "There's even a sign here saying 'Casino'."

Lilac pushes herself back onto her feet. "Aren't we too young to get into a casino? How did we get in, anyway?"

Carol shrugs. "Game logic."

"Game logic?"

"Logic that only makes sense in games."

"Like how rings mean an arrow hitting me didn't turn me into a kebab, and how you have infinite lives." Lilac thinks a moment. "Would be pretty useful to have these ring things in real life as well."

"You're reckless enough already," Carol teases.

"Speaking of reckless, I see pinball flippers over there," Lilac observes.

"You're going to let yourself be flung in the air?" Carol asks.

"Actually, I was just going to jump over them," Lilac replies.

The girls set off and collect a few rings, then attempt to leap the pit and the flippers Lilac spotted in one jump. However, they fall short and drop into the pit on the far side. Carol skids to a halt and uses a spin dash to get out, but Lilac doesn't stop in time. The dragon‑cum‑hedgehog hits a vertical orange flipper which triggers on contact, propelling her out of the pit and into the air at great speed.

Once out of the pit, Carol looks around for her friend. "Lilac? Where'd you go?"

" _Look out below!_ " Lilac cries.

Carol looks up just in time to see Lilac hurtling towards her. "You have _got_ to be‑"

Lilac lands on Carol, flattening her and winding them both.

"…ow," Carol mumbles, a little dazed from the impact.

"Sorry," Lilac apologises, also a little dazed. "Those orange flippers pack a punch."

"Is this going to be a repeat of when we went through the chemical plant?" Carol asks.

"I hope not," Lilac answers.

"You should probably get off me now."

"Yep."

Lilac rolls off Carol and onto her feet, then helps her friend up.

"Do you ever get the feeling us landing on top of each other is a running gag, penned by someone running a joke into the ground?" Lilac asks.

"Now you mention it, we do end up on top of each other more often than you'd expect," Carol admits. "But then we don't exactly live normal lives."

"True," Lilac agrees. "Shall we continue?"

"Lead the way," Carol answers.

The girls stop at the edge of a large drop.

"Upper or lower path?" Lilac asks.

"Upper path," Carol decides. "The lower path looks like a giant pinball machine."

Decision made, the girls leap over the pair of bumpers in front of them, run along a conveyer belt, then use the next set of bumpers to bounce themselves onto the next platform. They use the gentle downwards slope to gain speed and attempt to jump the next large gap, but their leaps fall short. Striking a couple more bumpers as they drop, they land gracefully at the bottom.

"So much for the upper path," Lilac sighs, looking up to where they fell from.

"At least we didn't land on top of each other this time," Carol smiles.

Lilac looks ahead of them. "We can use that green flipper to get to a spring that should take us back up to the higher path."

"If we must," Carol agrees. "You go first."

Lilac leads the way down the slope, uses the flipper to fling herself across to the spring, then bouncers up to the next platform, Carol following a few moments later. They then bridge the next gap using a snake‑like green platform, and ride the elevator up to the higher route. Clearing the single enemy robot and the next couple of obstacles proves trivial, and although the girls drop down to a lower route again, they continue without incident.

At the top of a large drop into a U‑shaped pit, the girls pause once more.

"You want to drop down there and build up lots of speed, don't you?" Carol asks Lilac rhetorically. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she adds with a wink.

"What if we end up on top of each other on the other side?" Lilac asks.

"You can always move out of the way," Carol smirks.

Grinning with anticipation, Lilac drops into the pit, curls into a ball, and gains huge speed on her way down. However, despite her speed, she doesn't quite make it all the way up the other side, and drops again.

Lilac uncurls and slides to a halt at the bottom. "Darn it!" she exclaims. "Wait… what's that up there?" she asks herself, spotting a gap in the wall. A quick spin dash gets her into a hidden tunnel. "Hey Carol!" she calls up to her friend. "Come check this out!"

A few moments later, Carol joins Lilac in the tunnel. "It's a bit cramped in here," she comments. "And the other end is blocked."

"Yeah, but it's blocked by a monitor with my face on it," Lilac informs. "What do you think that means?"

Carol thinks for a few moments. "The monitors so far have only been beneficial," she recalls. "I see no reason this one would be any different."

After a moment's hesitation, Lilac spin dashes through the monitor, destroying it. She then flies between a cluster of bumpers, drops down the far side of the pit, is propelled back out by an orange flipper, bounces off a couple more bumpers, lands badly just past them, rolls onto a flipper, and is flung across the next gap to land in a heap next to another lamppost. "That was dignified…"

Learning from Lilac's example, Carol makes a much better job of the same journey, landing in a graceful roll before uncurling and leaning against the lamppost in one smooth move. "And that is how you do that," she grins.

"Show‑off," Lilac teases as she picks herself up.

Carol leads the way to the end of the level. The only real obstacle is a moving blue block the girls easily clear. Once that is cleared, they enter a sequence where a pinball‑table‑style launcher spring propels them around a loop, then a second flings them over a pair of bumpers to a high ledge. Dropping down the other side, they clear the bumpers and flippers in the way, and find a third pinball launcher that propels them through a tunnel filled with rings. Exiting the other end, they use a green flipper to clear the last shallow pit, and pass the signpost at the end of the level. The signpost spins to reveal Carol got there first.

"Two‑two," Carol observes. "It's almost like we're taking turns."

"Did you see any robots in that level?" Lilac asks.

"Just the one," Carol answers.

"Why are there so few here? The other levels had dozens of them."

"Maybe there's more in the second half of this zone?"

"If the second half is like this first half, I don't think there'll be many: there's not many places to put them where they wouldn't be unnecessarily annoying."

"We'll find out soon enough."

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"You know how we have a big conversation at the start of every level?" Lilac asks.

"Yes," Carol answers. "Why do you ask?"

"Let's not bother this time."

"OK."

The girls set off and bounce across the first pit to find a robot on patrol.

"We've found one already?" Carol comments. "I guess there really are more bots in this half."

"Wanna smash it?" Lilac asks.

Carol leaps at the robot, harmlessly bouncing off its raised shield. "What the… Hang on, let me try something." Carol charges a spin dash behind the robot, then unleashes it, smashing the robot to pieces. However, her momentum carries her back over the pit they just crossed.

"You're going the wrong way!" Lilac calls teasingly.

"Yeah, yeah," Carol calls back nonchalantly before crossing back over the pit and rejoining her friend.

Once reunited, the girls continue down a short tunnel to another pinball launcher which launches them around a loop and into a shallow pit. A quick spin dash gets them to the top of the tall cliff on the far side to find a second robot.

"My turn!" Lilac declares, jumping over the robot and spin dashing into its back. Momentum takes her back into the pit, where she hits the red spring and gets propelled back out to a great height.

Carol watches Lilac as she falls, but she has nothing to worry about: Lilac performs a controlled and graceful landing.

"I think I've gotten used to the physics here finally," Lilac smiles to herself.

"Good," Carol smiles in response. "Means you won't keep landing on me."

Lilac makes to respond, then decides not to. "Let's continue."

After bouncing across another pit, the girls come across a flipper that leads up to something that looks like a slot machine.

"That looks like fun!" Carol decides, leaping up to the flipper and catapulting herself over and into the steel bars just below the three drums that form the display of the slot machine. The three drums start to rotate at speed, stopping one by one to reveal three pictures of Carol's face. A moment later, twenty‑five rings stream towards Carol, after which the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune drops to the ground.

"Wow!" Lilac exclaims. "I wanna try it now!"

Lilac uses the flipper to get into the slot machine, but her luck isn't quite as good as Carol's. The drums stop on three pictures of the madman that has attacked them three times so far. A moment later, a hundred small spiked balls stream into Lilac, after which the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog falls to the floor, landing flat on her front.

"That… was _excruciating_ ," she groans.

"…I don't think I'll have another go," Carol decides. "Are you OK?"

Lilac rolls onto her back. "I didn't die, if that's what you mean," she winces. "But now I know what it feels like to be a pincushion."

"If it's any consolation, you're not bleeding."

"Yay."

"Want to rest a while?"

Lilac pushes herself to her feet. "Nah, let's just carry on."

The two girls continue under the flipper, and cross two pits without incident. But as they run along the next platform, Lilac skids to a halt beside an unexpected sign.

"So _that's_ what my name looks like in lights," she muses.

Carol skids to a halt ten feet later, then turns back and rejoins her friend. "Yeah, I spotted one earlier. I would have mentioned it, but the slot machine was more interesting."

"Are there any with your name?" Lilac asks.

"Yeah, I saw one of those too," Carol answers.

"Question is, how did whoever made these signs know our names?"

"We're in a game, remember? They're normally the names of Sonic and Tails, but since we're in their places, they're our names instead."

"Who are they again?" Lilac asks, confused.

"The two playable characters in this game, obviously," Carol answers. "One's a speedy hedgehog‑"

"‑and the other's a twin‑tailed fox," Lilac finishes.

"Exactly. Come on, let's continue."

The two girls continue through the next section, following the route along and over a few pits until they get to another slot machine.

"Fancy another go?" Carol asks semi‑seriously.

"Nope," Lilac answers, spin dashing up to the top of the cliff ahead, Carol following a moment later.

At the next pit, the girls elect to drop down and bounce off a set of bumpers to a section with two pinball launchers with a loop between them. Avoiding a third slot machine, they fall into the pit and, after bouncing on some green bars that change colour with each bounce until disappearing, fall further to the bottom, where there's only one way out: via a set of bumpers arranged to make it almost impossible to bypass them.

"This is going to be interesting," Lilac comments.

Both girls spin dash up to the bumpers, but choose different ways of trying to get past them. Neither works, and they begin to pinball around until, inevitably, they bounce into each other. But this doesn't stop them pinballing around: instead, they bounce around out of control until, eventually, they finally bounce past the bumpers, and land in a tangled heap beside an elevator shaft.

"Ow," they groan in unison.

"I don't want to go through that again" Carol continues.

"Same here," Lilac agrees. "Can you shift a bit? You're pinning my arm."

"You're pinning my leg," Carol replies.

"Y'know, it's odd, but for the first time, I'm not missing my hair whips," Lilac admits.

"How come?" Carol asks.

"Because there's a possibility they'd've tangled and tied us up with all that bouncing around," Lilac explains.

"We're lucky my tails didn't do that," Carol comments.

"I'd forgotten about those," Lilac admits.

After a brief struggle, the girls disentangle themselves from each other, then spent a few moments stretching and shaking the stiffness out of their limbs. After, they ascend the elevator, and use another pinball launcher to pass through another loop and into the largest pinball area in the entire zone. However, neither Lilac nor Carol are interested in playing around, so they drop to the bottom, below two pairs of green flippers, and rest by a lamppost.

"Looks like a dead end ahead," Carol observes.

"Well, it's not like we can go back up there," Lilac replies, pointing up.

"We're going to fight the madman again," Carol concludes.

"That does appear to be the pattern," Lilac observes. "Two acts in each zone, with the madman at the end of each second act."

"What do you think his contraption will be this time?"

"Well, Emerald Hill had mines, and we faced a drill thing. Chemical Plant, he used the chemicals to make liquid bombs. And in Aquatic Ruin, he used totem pole relics. So, I'm guessing this one will involve pinball."

"Shall we go find out?"

"OK."

Together, the girls enter the battle arena. Just as Lilac had predicted, the arena is indeed pinball themed, with two pairs of green flippers with a bumper between them within jump height, and a set of four bumpers higher up. Once in the arena, the way they entered is blocked off.

"Here he comes," Carol informs.

Lilac looks up to see the madman appear through the opposite wall to where they entered. His machine is now covered in strips of glowing neon, and underneath is a vicious pair of claws with electricity arcing between them.

"Any ideas?" Lilac asks, backing away from the machine.

Carol, who is also backing away, looks around her. "One," she answers. "But it might not work that well."

"Try it anyway."

Carol stops, charges a spin dash, and unleashes it up one side of the arena. When at the right height, she leaps away from the side, across the arena, and into the top of the madman's machine. "Sweet!" Carol exclaims as she bounces back to the wall, using the quarter pipe to build speed and run up the other wall.

As she does this, the madman halts over Lilac. The arc of electricity disappears, only to be replaced by a red spiky ball. Lilac dives out of the way just in time to avoid being hit, and continues to roll to avoid the shrapnel the bomb produces when it explodes on contact with the ground. "Hurry Carol! He's dropping bombs!"

"Alright, keep your spines stiff!" Carol replies as she scores the second hit.

Carol continues her pattern of attack while Lilac avoids the dropping bombs. The battle settles into a natural rhythm, and before long, Carol scores the eighth and final hit. The madman's machine explodes, the claws and neon falling off and disintegrating. Once again, the madman makes his escape, growling "I hate that hedgehog!"

"We sure scrambled that eggbrain!" Lilac cheers.

"You mean _I_ scrambled that eggbrain," Carol corrects. "All you did was dodge bombs."

"I was distracting him?" Lilac offers.

"Nice try," Carol replies.

Lilac sighs in resignation. "OK, OK. Thanks for dealing with the madman for me."

Carol pauses a moment. "It'll have to do. Come on, the exit's opened up. Time to end this casino night."

"That pun was terrible," Lilac comments.

A quick spin dash sees both girls out of the arena, and a few moments later, Lilac hits the button that blows the Egg Prison open. Once the animals have escaped, silence falls.

"Aren't you going to say something?" Carol asks Lilac eventually.

Lilac shakes her head.

"Why not?" Carol inquires.

Lilac raises an eyebrow as if to say 'You know the answer to that'.

"Come on, it's not that bad, surely?" Carol queries.

"You'd be the same if your sen‑" Lilac begins.

The world fades to black.


	6. Hill Top Zone

**Act 1**

"Nope," Lilac decides.

"What?" Carol asks.

"Not doing it anymore," Lilac explains, sitting on the grass, arms folded, eyes closed, resolute.

"I can't complete this alone," Carol pleads. "Plus, we can't stay here forever: we need to finish the game and get home."

Lilac sighs in defeat. "I know," she relents. "I'm just sick of not being able to finish my sentences after busting an Egg Prison."

"It wouldn't surprise me if it was something like how we keep landing on top of each other," Carol suggests. "Y'know, a running gag that's getting old fast."

Lilac ponders the thought. "OK," she decides, standing up. "Here's the deal: we'll complete this level, and see what happens. If I get to complete my sentence, then I'll stop complaining. If I get cut off again though, I'm gonna want answers."

"Works for me," Carol shrugs.

"Is it just me, or does the air feel thinner here?" Lilac asks suddenly.

"It is thinner," Carol confirms. "We're on a hill top so high it's almost a mountain."

The girls run up the slope in front of them and stop at the top of a waiting cable car that's little more than a tray suspended by vines.

Lilac peeks over the edge of the platform. "Woah, that's a long way down…"

"We're above the cloud layer?" Carol asks, joining Lilac at the edge. "This really _is_ a mountain!"

The girls ride the cable car down the vine it's suspended from, expecting a gentle stop at the end. What they don't expect is for the tray to fall off at the end, sending them both plummeting through the clouds to their certain deaths.

The world fades to black.

* * *

"Note to self: cable cars fall off at the end of the cable," Lilac remarks.

"At least I have infinite lives," Carol reminds. "You don't, and you've lost two now."

A wave of fear suddenly washes over Lilac. "So I only have one left?" she asks nervously.

"Unless you picked up some extras," Carol answers. "That monitor in the last zone with your face on it, for instance."

"That gave me an extra life?"

"Why else would it have your face on it?"

"Good point. So, I have two left. How many more zones are there?"

Carol shrugs. "That memory is still blocked."

"We must be getting close to halfway though, surely?" Lilac asks. "These old games aren't that long. Are they?"

"I've seen speedrunners finish in under twenty minutes," Carol answers. "A normal playthrough tends to be a couple of hours."

"And we've been taking our time, so we must be getting close to halfway by now," Lilac concludes.

The girls set off again and ride the cable car, jumping off just before the end of the descent and onto the platform. As they run up the slope, they smash a couple of robots and collect rings, stopping at the top beside a lava pit.

"Correction: this is a _volcano,_ " Carol self‑corrects.

The girls use a couple of falling and rising grassy platforms to cross the lava pit.

"How do those platforms even work?" Lilac asks. "Oh, wait, game logic."

"Yep."

A few moments later, the girls find a seesaw. Concluding quickly that using it is the only way they'll get to the platform above, they jump on one end, catapulting a flashing red‑yellow orb high into the air. And it falls right on top of their heads.

"Ow!" the girls chorus, both flying backwards a short distance, rings scattering around them.

"We need to start being more cautious," Carol decides.

"Agreed," Lilac replies.

The girls try the seesaw trick again, only this time they move from one end to the other while the orb is airborne. Once safely on the higher platform, the girls continue their journey over another lava pit and down am S‑shaped tunnel. Three seesaws, a lava pit, and a spring later, they ride another cable car over another lava pit, then proceed to a three‑quarter loop they have no choice but to go through.

"What now?" Lilac asks.

Carol drops onto all fours and checks the ground where the loop goes straight down. "This feels weak… A spin dash might just break through it."

"Then stand back!" Lilac charges a spin dash and unleashes it around the loop, drilling straight through the weak ground and into a cavern below. "It worked!" she calls up to Carol after she lands.

"Look out below!" Carol jumps down the hole and lands gracefully beside her friend.

Another couple of seesaws see them over another lava pit, and two cable cars later, they're at the bottom of the cavern. A spring fires them up a cliff and to a passageway with three metal doors that automatically open as they approach.

After passing through the third door, the ground starts shaking.

" _Earthquake!_ " Lilac exclaims.

" _The ground's rising!_ " Carol adds.

Lilac looks around frantically. "Look! An opening!"

The girls leap up to and sprint under a rising ceiling until they get to another lava pit. To their horror, the lava is also rising!

" _Back the other way!_ " Lilac commands.

The girls start to head back, only to find the door is now completely blocked by rock.

"We can't get through!" Carol exclaims.

"I don't wanna lose another life!" Lilac pleads.

Suddenly, the earthquake stops.

"Are we… Are we safe?" Carol asks nervously.

Lilac looks around. "Sort of… The lava has stopped rising, but there's no way out."

"So we're trapped here until we die," Carol concludes.

"Looks like it," Lilac agrees.

Carol sighs deeply. "How shall we pass the‑"

Suddenly, the earthquake resumes.

"The ceiling's coming back down!" Lilac exclaims.

Carol looks around frantically. "Look! The lava's going down too!"

The girls escape from under the ceiling, and once the lava has dropped low enough, they cross the pit and exit the chamber via two doors that close behind them.

"I'm so glad to be out of there," Lilac sighs in relief, flopping to the ground to rest.

"Me too," Carol agrees, flopping beside her friend.

For a while, the two friends simply rest.

"Carol…"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't the grass in that chamber burn?"

"Game logic."

"Shoulda guessed."

The girls rest another minute or so, then continue. After a double‑S tunnel, a seesaw, and a loop, they reach the end of the level, Lilac passing the sign first.

"Thank the Ancients that's over!" Lilac exclaims with relief.

"Um… Lilac? That was only the first act," Carol reminds.

"Oh."

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"Here we go again," Lilac declares as she sets off, Carol following diligently behind.

At first, the girls encounter little trouble: a spin dash up a cliff, a hop and a jump over a lava pit, a roll through an S‑tunnel, and another spin dash up a cliff bring them swiftly to a new enemy encounter at a wide lava pit.

"Is it just me, or are the robots we keep finding just a bit dumb?" Lilac asks.

"Dumb or not, you're the one who got vaporised by one," Carol teasingly reminds.

"I've never played this game before, remember?" Lilac retorts. "But this robot, all it does is stare at us. And it's back looks like the perfect platform to use as a stepping stone across the lava".

"You first," Carol decides.

Lilac doesn't need telling twice: she leaps at the robot's head… just in time for it to shoot her.

" _Yow!_ " Lilac exclaims, flying back onto the platform, her rings scattering.

"Not so dumb now, is it?" Carol teases, reclaiming a few of the scattered rings.

"I won't make that mistake again." And true to her word, Lilac doesn't make the same mistake again. With the robot vanquished, and the freed critter somehow hopping away over lava without harm, Lilac's momentum takes her onto a small platform that sags slightly as she lands. One final leap sees Lilac safely across the lava.

As Lilac bounces across, Carol follows. However, the small platform Lilac bounced off drops into the lava before Carol lands on it. Lilac can only watch on in horror as Carol's body is incinerated in just a few seconds.

A few moments later, Carol lands beside the horrified Lilac. "Note to self: burning to death hurts loads, but only for a few seconds."

"I wish I hadn't watched that," Lilac mumbles quietly.

"Trust me, feeling it is worse," Carol comments. "Come on."

The girls navigate the next three‑quarter loop and two cliffs in silence, and cross the next lava pit with great caution via cable car. Soon, they come across a metal door that opens as they approach.

"Why do I get the feeling the next section is a giant death‑trap?" Lilac asks.

"Because the last time we went through doors like that, it was to a death‑trap," Carol reminds.

"It'll be rising lava, won't it?"

"Probably. Was last time."

"Hopefully the ceiling won't come down too."

After passing through the next door, the girls find themselves in a large cavern with a floor made almost entirely of lava. As they leap to the first platform, the ground starts to shake and the lava starts to rise.

"I knew it!" Lilac declares. "Carol, climb!" she commands as she begins her ascent.

"You don't say?" Carol retorts sarcastically, following her friend up the cavern.

The girls attempt to climb quickly, but the moving platforms hold them up badly. Several times they're forced to wait agonising seconds for a platform to descend enough to jump on, then seconds more for it to rise high enough to jump off. Just past halfway, the timing gets even worse.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Lilac begs, desperate to keep climbing.

"We're not gonna make it!" Carol realises.

"We will!" Lilac assures. "We just need‑ finally!"

Just in time, the platform the girls are waiting for descends low enough to jump on. No sooner had they jumped than the platform they were on gets covered in lava. Mercifully, the timing of the platforms starts to work to their advantage, and soon, the girls are out of the death‑trap, a metal door closing to isolate them from the rising lava.

"This game is a lot scarier when you're actually in it," Carol admits. "That section never bothered me when I was pressing buttons on a plastic joypad."

"I guess," Lilac agrees. "But we seem to be getting used to it. In fact, I'm kinda starting to _enjoy_ it!"

"Great."

"Come on Carol!" Lilac encourages. "Games are meant to be fun!"

"At the start of this zone, you were sulking about not being able to finish your sentences," Carol reminds. "And now you're getting a thrill from being nearly fried?"

Lilac thinks a moment. "Put that way, it sounds like I'm acting like Hanna Skarlett."

"Who's about as good at being a role model as a tree is at being sushi," Carol quips.

Lilac can't help but chuckle at the mental image of a wooden makizushi. "That's a good one," she compliments. "Let's continue."

The next section is mercifully free from hazards, and the girls enjoy running down a series of small drops to the next cavern. At the entrance to the cavern however, they fail to notice the small drop that leads to two opposing springs. Lilac is the first to drop, hitting the far spring and bouncing straight into Carol. The girls slam into each other so hard it knocks the wind completely out of them, and they collapse in a panting heap between the springs.

"This is… getting old," Lilac pants.

"And painful," Carol pants in return. "Also… you're on… my leg."

"And you're… on mine."

The girls rest for a few minutes as they get their breath back. Once they've recovered, they untangle themselves from each other again, and carefully continue. The rest of the level proceeds largely without incident, though five spiky cones dropping from the ceiling after riding three cable cars comes as a bit of a surprise. Nevertheless, the girls escape without injury, and after a climb out of the cavern, the end of the level is in sight.

As they approach the end though, they see something neither wanted to see.

"The boss battle is over two lava pits‽" Carol asks in surprise and fear.

"Then we'll just have to be careful," Lilac replies. "You take the near pit; I'll cover the far."

When the girls are in position, the battle begins. The madman appears from under the lava in the pit Lilac is guarding. Lilac wastes no time in scoring four quick hits, easily avoiding the madman's flamethrower, and bouncing back onto the platform as the madman begins to descend.

"This is easy!" Lilac declares.

A second later, a fireball lands on the platform right in front of her, spreading across the platform on impact.

" _Gyah!_ " Lilac exclaims as the flames swirl around her legs, causing her rings to scatter out of reach as she is knocked backwards into the lava pit. By instinct, Lilac leaps out of the pit to safety. "Erm… how did I do that?" she asks herself.

But Carol is too busy to answer. The madman appears out of the second pit, and Carol quickly scores the remaining four hits. The madman's machine is riddled with explosions that destroy the flamethrower.

"I hate that hedgehog!" the madman growls as he descends back into the lava.

"…OK then," Carol remarks. "Looks like that's the end of him."

"Why?" Lilac asks. "Where did he go?"

"Back into the lava."

"…OK then. Wanna hit the big yellow button?"

"Eh, why not," Carol shrugs.

With another Egg Prison busted, the girls take the chance to rest.

"What do you think the next zone will be?" Carol asks.

Lilac shrugs but says nothing.

"I wish my memories weren't still being blocked," Carol continues.

Lilac nods but says nothing.

"Guess you're refusing to speak because you keep getting cut off," Carol guesses.

Lilac nods again.

"Then I'll keep talking," Carol smiles, "since it won't cut‑"

The world fades to black.


	7. Mystic Cave Zone

**Act 1**

"Me and my big fox mouth," Carol sighs.

"Annoying, isn't it?" Lilac asks.

"Yep," Carol agrees. "Where are we, by the way?"

Lilac looks around. "Some sort of mystic cave would be my guess."

"At least it's well‑lit," Carol observes.

"I just hope there's no lava down here," Lilac comments. "Come on, let's do it to it."

"You said it again," Carol points out.

"I know," Lilac sighs. "I just… I can't help it."

Together, the girls start their journey through the mystic cave, selecting the lower route when the choice presents itself.

"Well, that's good," Carol comments flatly. "The passage is blocked. What's more, that's one big spike pit."

"Looks like a drawbridge to me," Lilac informs. "There must be a way to lower it."

Lilac steps off the platform onto a wooden structure hanging over the spike pit. A moment later, the wooden structure creaks loudly, then collapses. Instinct kicks in as Lilac leaps for the nearest thing she can grab hold of: a vine hanging from the ceiling. Her weight pulls the vine down a few inches… and lowers the drawbridge.

"Th‑That was c‑close!" Lilac stammers, relief washing over her.

"At least you found the switch for the drawbridge," Carol smirks. "Now how about hopping off so I can get across? After all, someone collapsed the wooden platform I could have used…"

"Huh? Oh! Of course." Lilac swings off the vine and lands on the drawbridge.

A few seconds later, Carol lands beside her, and the girls continue their journey. After riding another vine up, they use a spring to switch to the upper route, and soon come across a trio of boxes floating in mid‑air, moving around themselves on an oblong path.

"Carol…"

"Yes…"

"Are you a little freaked out right now?"

"Yes."

"Good. Glad it's not just me."

"It's not every day you see cargo floating in mid‑air."

"Yeah…"

Warily, the girls hop onto one of the crates and ride it across the gap. Once safely on the other side, they continue until they find another bridge with another vine hanging over it. Carol immediately leaps and grabs onto the vine, opening the bridge… and dropping Lilac directly onto a set of spikes.

" _YOW!_ " Lilac cries as she flies backwards onto a small ledge with a monitor on it, her rings scattering out of reach. " _Carol! Watch what you're doing!_ "

"Sorry," Carol apologises, hopping off the vine when it reaches its lowest point and landing on the other side of the spikes.

"Luckily, there's a ring monitor here," Lilac informs, smashing the monitor behind her as she speaks. "So at least I'm protected trying to get back over the spikes."

The jump proves simple enough, even with the annoyingly brief run‑up Lilac can get from the small ledge. After crossing the pit in front of them, they find themselves with an impossible jump.

"What now?" Lilac asks. "There's no other way forward."

"Jump!" Carol commands.

"It's too high though," Lilac comments.

"Jump, or you'll be spiked again!" Carol repeats.

Lilac lowers her gaze from the high ledge just in time to see a set of spikes moving directly towards her. Instinct once again takes over as she leaps on the moving platform, only to have to quickly jump twice more to avoid being skewered by the next two moving platforms.

"The zones are definitely getting more dangerous!" Lilac gasps once on top of the final platform.

"Even more reason to keep moving and finish this game," Carol remarks.

Now they're high enough to reach the ledge, the girls waste no time as they sprint along the platform, under a pillar of foliage that slams down at regular intervals, and onto another bridge with a vine over it.

"This time, let's grab the vine _together_ ," Lilac decides.

Carol nods in agreement. The girls leap in unison and grab hold of the vine, riding it down through the now‑open bridge into the pit below.

"I wish this vine was bigger," Lilac opines, her face less than an inch from Carol's as they descend.

"Me too," Carol agrees.

At the bottom, the girls drop onto the floor below, and continue their journey. After clearing another set of boxes, they spin dash up to a high ledge, then drop down into the next pit, as they're unable to reach the vine that would lower the next drawbridge. Soon, they're in a tall section with only one route out. Which is blocked by a drawbridge. Fortunately, there's a vine that will open it. Unfortunately, it's massively out of reach. Fortunately, there's a way up. Unfortunately, it's not easy.

"Looks like you'll have to fly up," Lilac observes.

"Can't," Carol reveals.

"Sure you can!" Lilac replies encouragingly. "I've seen you fly already."

"Yeah, but only when coming back from the dead," Carol informs. "Once I land, that's it: I can't fly anymore."

"What's the point of adding a character that can fly, then not allow the player to actually fly?" Lilac asks, a little frustrated.

"To keep the two‑player mode balanced, I guess," Carol explains. "Or maybe the programmers just forgot to implement it."

"If the latter, that's just dumb."

"Yep."

Lilac looks around her. "Ah, I see how to get up."

"How?"

"Like this." Lilac jumps on the spring by the wall, and lands on a moving platform about halfway up. She uses this to make it onto a wooden platform that collapses, but not before she's jumped and grabbed hold of the vine, lowering the drawbridge. "Easy as nigirizushi!"

Carol follows Lilac up to the lowered drawbridge, and together they move through to another climb. However, this time, there's no obvious way up, aside from a vine that's too high to reach.

"Ideas?" Lilac asks.

Carol is about to answer "None," but then she notices a second vine that is within reach, which she grabs, lowering a hidden drawbridge. "Just one, but I don't know if it'll work," she quips.

With the drawbridge lowered, the first vine is now within reach, and the girls ride it up to the next obstacle: two pillars of firm vegetation that descend slowly then shoot upwards to the ceiling.

Lilac tries to time a jump over the first pillar, but every time she's about to jump, the pillar rises, and she hesitates and misses her chance. "In the name of the Ancients, this is tricky."

"You're gonna have to jump at some point," Carol informs, though she too is finding it difficult to get a jump in.

Eventually, Lilac makes the leap, but only just: if she was a mere half second later, she would have been crushed by the pillar. A few moments later, Carol also clears the pillar.

"Wow, that was close!" Lilac exclaims. "Was almost a dra‑ hedgehog pancake! Of course, would have been easier to have Dragon Boosted through it…"

"There's another pillar," Carol informs.

"Oh…"

Mercifully, with the platform between the pillars being slightly higher, the second pillar is easier to clear. After that is a single pit that's cleared with ease, then the signpost at the end of the level, Carol getting to it first.

"You mentioned a two‑player mode earlier," Lilac recalls. "How does that work?"

"You race through three of the zones, competing on time, rings, and a few other things," Carol explains.

"A race, huh?" Lilac smiles.

"I told you you'd like this game," Carol smirks.

"Despite the dangers, I'm warming to it," Lilac admits.

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"Here we go again" Lilac declares, heading off straight away to the first drawbridge.

"Hey, wait up!" Carol replies, chasing after Lilac.

But Lilac doesn't slow down. After grabbing the vine and lowering the first drawbridge, she continues past it, dropping onto the lower route, and lowering the second drawbridge. She then continues at pace… and slams face‑first into a foliage pillar that drops just in time for her to hit it. The pillar then starts to lift. Lilac is tipped off‑balance, and she lands hard on her tail.

"Ow," she mutters, rubbing her nose and tail.

"That'll teach you to rush," Carol teases when she catches up.

"You know me," Lilac shrugs. "I gotta go fast."

"You keep this up, you'll run right into a trap you can't get out of," Carol predicts.

"Then I'll just have to be careful," Lilac decides.

"Like you were when you got us locked in that crate?" Carol reminds. "And Gong kept us in there for the rest of the day?"

"You were the one who got spotted," Lilac recalls. "Anyway, I bought you sushi after that. Also, point taken. Let's continue."

A quick well‑timed spin dash sees both girls clear the pillar, and even though they drop into the next pit, they land on a spring and keep their momentum going… right up until they roll into a pair of lit‑up firefly bots.

"Yow!" the girls chorus, flying back as rings scatter.

"I thought they were harmless?" Lilac asks rhetorically. "We've passed several, and nothing bad happened."

"Just be thankful you had rings," Carol comments.

When the firefly bots go dark moments later, Lilac and Carol waste no time destroying them, the critters freed from inside hopping away happily. They then drop down off the end of the platform, avoiding the spikes below, and come across another set of large crates. After popping the ring monitor, they drop down with a crate to find another monitor, this time with stars on it.

"I wonder what this does?" Lilac thinks aloud as she smashes the monitor. "Woah!" she exclaims as she is surrounded by stars.

"That is so cool!" Carol gasps, wide‑eyed in awe.

"I feel invincible!" Lilac continues. "I can go fast without worry!"

Before Carol can respond, Lilac is off, dropping below the crates and on her way to the next obstacle.

"This won't end well," Carol mutters to herself as she sets off in pursuit.

Lilac tears through the next couple of sections at top speed. Nothing gets in her way, and despite a drawbridge, two foliage pillars, and a spike pit, she streaks ahead of Carol. But inevitably, it goes wrong. Lilac overshoots a jump to a vine, hits the raised drawbridge that would otherwise have been lowered, and drops into a spike pit so deep there is no way out.

A few moments later, Carol catches up and perches on the edge of the pit. "Told ya."

Lilac's invincibility runs out. "Gyah!" she exclaims as the spikes finally hurt her, her rings scattering. However, in the confines of the pit, some of the scattered rings bounce back to Lilac.

"I wonder how many times that'll happen?" Carol thinks aloud from the top of the pit.

"Help me out of here!" Lilac pleads. "Ow!" she exclaims as the spikes hurt her again, a couple of scattered rings bouncing back to her.

"I can't, remember?" Carol reminds. "No flying."

"Oh yeah… ow!" A single ring bounces back to Lilac.

"I shouldn't find this funny, but I totally do!" Carol chuckles.

Lilac simply growls until she gets hurt by the spikes again. Resigned to her fate, Lilac dodges the ring as it bounces back towards her, and impales herself on the spikes.

The world freezes, then fades to black.

* * *

"The beginning of the level‽" Sash cries angrily. "Are you _kidding me‽_ "

"Take it easy," Carol requests calmly. "It's not game over yet."

"I only have one life left!" Sash replies, her frustration laid bare. "If I die again, we may _never_ get home!"

"Did you pick up a hundred rings in any one level?" Carol asks.

"Three times," Sash answers. "Why?"

"Holding one hundred rings gives you an extra life," Carol explains.

" _What‽ Why didn't you tell me that earlier‽_ " Sash demands.

"The memory was only returned to me a moment ago!" Carol pleads.

"Y'know what? I don't care anymore," Sash dismisses. "I have four lives, and I'm gonna make good use of them."

Sash sets off without another word, Carol following. The girls retrace their route through the level at speed, only slowing to ensure they safely make it over the inescapable pit. After two more spike pits, they climb with the aid of a couple of vines, then drop down again as the terrain dictates. Near the bottom of the descent, Sash stops by a lamppost.

"That's not even slightly funny," the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog states flatly before hitting the post almost hard enough to break it.

"At least now… we won't have to… repeat the level," Carol pants, the effort of keeping up with Sash starting to take its toll.

"Woo," Sash replies sarcastically before sprinting towards the boss arena.

"Well, I guess the fight won't last long," Carol sighs, following Sash at a slower pace.

Sash waits impatiently while Carol catches up, but before she can criticise the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune's lack of pace, the ground begins to shake. The girls are forced to dodge as spikes fall from the ceiling, though unlike the spikes littering the landscapes of each zone, these are organic.

A few moments later, the madman in his flying machine appears from the ceiling, his craft now sporting two large powerful pivoting drills.

"Him again?" Sash asks incredulously.

"How did he not burn in the lava?" Carol asks.

"Don't know, and don't care. He's not getting away this time."

As soon as the madman's craft is within reach, Sash attacks, fast and ferocious. By the time the madman's craft is at ground level, Sash has scored three hits, and is heading for her fourth. The fourth attack proves to be mistimed: the madman pivots the drills horizontal in time for Sash to strike the spinning drill tips.

"Dammit!" Sash exclaims, recovering a handful of her scattered rings, then going straight in for the attack again. She quickly scores another three hits, but just as she prepares to go for a fourth, she hesitates. The hesitation proves beneficial, as the madman pivots the drills vertical and into a position where Sash would have hit the tips again.

As the madman begins to ascend back to the ceiling, Sash scores one more hit, but misses what would have been the final hit as the madman ascends out of reach. As the drill tips penetrate the ceiling, debris and spikes rain down again, forcing the girls to dodge. The madman descends again a few moments later, and Sash takes her chance. With the final hit scored, explosions tear the drill pods from the craft.

"Now to finish you off for good!" Sash declares. But before she can attack, the madman flees, shouting "I hate that hedgehog!"

" _Get back here!_ " Sash demands.

"It's too late Lilac," Carol informs. "He's gone."

"Dammit!" Sash wheels on Carol. "And where were you, huh? Why didn't you help?"

"You looked like you had it under control," Carol explains.

" _I got hurt!_ " Sash yells back.

" _Because you rushed in without thinking!_ " Carol retorts. "Now please, just calm down!"

"Why?" Sash demands.

"Because you're scaring me!" Carol explains, her eyes moist.

Sash is about to reply, but thinks better of it. With a deep calming breath, the anger bleeds from here. "Sorry," Lilac apologises. "I uh… I guess I got a bit carried away there…"

"Just a bit, yeah," Carol confirms. "Can you keep calm for the rest of the game?"

"I'll try," Lilac promises.

"Good," Carol acknowledges. "Now go hit the button to free all those poor animals being held prisoner."

Lilac complies with Carol's command, electing to remain on top of the button to recite a calming mantra. Carol watches the animals escape, then joins Lilac on top of the Egg Prison.

"Feeling better now?" Carol asks.

"Yeah," Lilac nods, smiling slightly.

The world fades to black.


	8. Oil Ocean Zone

**Act 1**

"At least I didn't get cut off that time," Lilac smiles.

"I'm sure there's still a couple of chances," Carol teases.

"How much longer is this game, anyway?" Lilac asks, a hint of concern in her voice.

"Still can't remember," Carol admits. "But I do feel like we're past halfway now."

"Good." Lilac looks around her. "Where on… whatever this planet is called are we, anyway?"

Now it's Carol's turn to survey her surroundings. "Looks like… some sort of refinery?"

"What for?" Lilac asks.

Carol looks over the edge of the platform the girls are standing on. "Oil. There's a whole ocean, and we're in the middle of it."

"An oil ocean? What kind of madman‑ Oh, wait, _that_ kind of madman."

"Whole place is deader than Mayor Zao's modesty," Carol quips.

Lilac looks at Carol disapprovingly, but Carol's cheesy grin causes her to crack. "Nice one," she chuckles.

The girls set off into the level, and soon run into the first enemy robot: a pink octopus. Thinking such a robot would be easy to defeat, Lilac leaps into the attack. However, the octopus robot jumps at the same time, and fires a black projectile at the peak of the jump. The projectile hits Lilac in the face, sending her backwards, her seven rings scattering.

Carol's attack is better timed, and she breaks the bot. She then grabs a couple of the scattered rings, and goes to help her friend. "Need a hand?"

"That was disgusting," Lilac groans, trying to wipe the oil out of her face fur, but only succeeding in spreading it further. "Darn oil got in my eyes too!"

"I'd offer to get water, but there isn't any," Carol replies.

"I'll manage," Lilac assures, blinking furiously to clear her eyes.

"I wonder why it shot oil?" Carol asks rhetorically. "Those things normally shoot energy pellets. Come to think of it, quite a few of the little things are wrong about this game…"

"Like what?" Lilac asks, trying to clean her gloves on her jacket and shorts, but only spreading the oil further.

"Well, the signposts are usually only triggered by the player character," Carol explains. "Also, dying should result in us bouncing up a short distance before falling through the level."

"We're trapped inside a videogame, and you're worrying about the death animation," Lilac replies monotonically.

"But if there's little differences, there may be bigger differences we haven't seen yet," Carol ventures.

"Huh." Lilac thinks a moment. "Anything we can do about it?"

"Probably not."

"Then there's no point worrying about it. Let's just get the game finished."

Carol looks Lilac up and down. "Y'know, with all that oil on you, you're starting to look like a sorta dark and edgy recolour or something," she teases.

Lilac stands and looks at herself. "Ew, I _really_ need a bath. Oh well, nothing we can do about it now. Let's continue."

The girls continue a short distance until they arrive at a green plate atop a purple arrangement of pipes, dispatching another octopus robot on the way. As they approach the green plate, taking care not to fall onto the spikes surrounding it, the green plate suddenly shoots high into the air, exposing green fire underneath.

"That looks like a fun ride!" Carol grins excitedly.

"I'm not so sure," Lilac opines cautiously.

"Why not?" Carol asks as the green plate lands perfectly where it started.

"I'm covered in oil," Lilac reminds.

Carol wipes a little oil off Lilac's top with her fingertip and inspects it. "It's unrefined, so it won't burn."

"I hope you're right," Lilac accepts as they jump on the green plate, riding it high a few seconds later. Lilac takes the opportunity to grab the ring stash from the high ledge they can now reach, then drops down to join Carol on the next platform.

"Told you you'd be fine," Carol winks. "Couldn't resist the shinies either," she adds with a cheeky smile.

"What shinies?" Lilac bluffs.

Carol raises a single eyebrow, or at least makes a motion that would raise one if she had any.

"Fine, there were twenty rings up there," Lilac admits with a sigh of defeat. "Look, it's to help protect‑"

"I know, I know," Carol smirks. "Come on, let's continue."

The girls continue onwards and follow the path of the level, electing to follow the upper route when given the choice. After riding a series of elevators, they arrive at the highest part of the level so far, dispatching a flying seahorse robot on the way, but not before it had shot Carol, covering her with oil.

At the top of a slide, they halt.

"A slide covered in oil?" Lilac asks. "That's nasty."

"Then again, we are already covered in the stuff," Carol reminds.

"Fair point," Lilac admits.

The girls ride the oil down the slide, drop off the end to another slide, and ride it to the bottom, where they're deposited next to a lamppost. Lilac touches it to avoid a repeat of the second half of Mystic Cave Zone, then the girls resume their journey. However, with their shoes now slick with oil, they slip, lose their footing, and drop off the edge of the platform onto another oil slide. Unable to stop or even slow down, Lilac and Carol continue to fall, dropping from slide to slide until the last of the four dumps them in the ocean of oil itself.

"This is vile!" Lilac exclaims, doing her best to prevent herself sinking slowly. "How are we going to get out of this?"

"There's a platform there," Carol indicates, also trying not to sink into the oil.

The girls jump out of the oil and onto the platform, only for it to collapse and dump them back in the oil. Thankfully for them both, there's still a platform within reach, which they jump onto. After a few attempts, they find their footing, and take stock of the situation.

"This has _got_ to be the most disgusting zone so far," Lilac grumbles, trying vainly to clean the oil out of her fur and clothes.

"It's nasty, but that chemical plant was worse," Carol opines. "Remember the stench of that place? Not to mention the pink water."

Lilac almost vomits at the thought. "Don't remind me," she croaks.

Carol shakes vigorously, spraying oil everywhere. Yet when she's finished shaking, she's still as black as before.

"Thanks for that Carol," Lilac mutters sarcastically. "The one thing I wanted is to be covered in _more_ oil."

"Sorry," Carol apologises sheepishly.

"At least we'll be heading up for a bit," Lilac observes. "Come on."

The girls begin their ascent, riding four green plates high into the level. At the top of the ascent, Lilac pauses to empty her boots of oil, then they continue down a gentle slope, dispatching a couple of flying seahorse robots on the way. At the bottom, they ride an elevator up to find something that would normally have a green plate on top of it, but instead has a fragile‑looking green and yellow plug.

"That's unusual," Lilac opines as the wreckage from the seahorse bot Carol just dispatched clatters around her.

"It's the only way to proceed," Carol observes. "You want to break it, or shall I?"

"Those purple things normally have fire, and we're covered in oil," Lilac reminds. "A lot more so than before."

"And the oil isn't going to burn," Carol assures. "Besides, you can always bounce off the plug and away from the flames."

"Good point." Lilac leaps onto the top of the plug, which breaks on impact. However, instead of bouncing, Lilac is propelled into the air at speed, and into an airborne cannon. The cannon closes on Lilac, rotates, then opens and fires her horizontally through the air into another cannon, the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog unable to stop herself screaming with fearful excitement.

"That looks so cool!" Carol chimes as she leaps over where the plug was, where she is also propelled into the air, whooping with joy as she flies around the level.

After a succession of cannons, Lilac is fired vertically out the final one into a group of seven rings, then dropping gracefully to the platform below. "Woah!" she gasps, buzzing with adrenaline. "That was one heck of a‑"

Lilac's sentence is cut short by Carol flattening her.

"…ride," Lilac sighs, winded slightly.

"Landing's a bit rough though," Carol groans in response.

"Well, I'm not giving whoever's responsible for this the satisfaction of a joke that got old before this adventure even started," Lilac declares, gently pushing Carol off her.

"I get the feeling there's going to be one more attempt though," Carol opines.

"Still won't give them the satisfaction," Lilac decides as she stands.

After helping Carol to her feet, the duo continues, shortly finding another breakable plug. This time, Carol goes first, and after a much shorter sequence of cannons, she lands gently on a platform… only for Lilac to land on her a moment later.

"You were right," Lilac confirms, rolling off her friend and onto her knees.

"I hate being right," Carol sighs.

"Come on," Lilac encourages. "We must be near the end of the level by now."

"I hope so."

The girls continue their journey to the end of the level, their only obstacles being an octopus robot, a short lift descent, and a green plate ride. Carol is first onto the final platform, but Lilac unleashes a spin dash to get to the signpost first.

"Cheater," Carol teases as she jogs up to the signpost.

"Just using what I have available," Lilac smirks.

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"Yay, more oil to get soaked with," Lilac sighs.

"At least we're clean now," Carol observes.

Lilac looks down at herself. "Of course! Whenever a level ends, we're reset to a defined starting point! And I was worried about getting that stuff out of my… spines…"

"We're getting closer to the end," Carol assures. "Come on."

Lilac takes a deep breath, then together, she and Carol head in the level. At first, progress is smooth, and it doesn't take long before they arrive at a line of four green plates, over two of which are strange contraptions.

"Fancy seeing what those things do?" Carol asks Lilac.

"So long as they don't dump us in oil, why not?" Lilac shrugs. "Which one?"

"The closest."

With a couple of carefully timed jumps, Lilac and Carol perch on top of the second green plate, and wait to be launched. Just as Lilac starts tapping her foot impatiently, the plate launches, lifting the girls into the contraption, which propels them into a short sequence of cannons, after which they land side‑by‑side on a platform.

"That's more like it!" Lilac smiles in satisfaction.

"Keep cool, Lilac," Carol cautions. "Big spiky thing up ahead."

"Don't worry, I see it," Lilac assures.

The girls continue past the oversized spiked metal torus sliding along a large tube, leaping it without difficulty. A quick spin dash gets them up to the next level, where they dodge two more tori, then ride an elevator up a short rise to get to the top of an oil slide.

"In the name of the Ancients…" Lilac sighs.

Carol surveys the slide. "If we charge up enough, we could spin dash over the slide and land on the platform past it."

"Worth a shot," Lilac accepts.

The girls curl up and charge a spin dash each for several seconds, until they're spinning so fast they can barely hold themselves. Then the unleash the dashes.

Two blurs, one purple, one green, fly over the oil slide at immense speed, and just make it through the gap between their target platform and the low ceiling above it. Landing in a run, their momentum takes them down the next shallow slope at great speed, and they launch high off the quarter pipe at the end… and land on the octopus robot waiting for them.

"Ow," Lilac mutters when she lands, rather unimpressed, grabbing a few of the scattered rings as they bounce past before smashing the robot with a quick spin dash.

"That was unfortunate," Carol remarks, grabbing a few more of the scattered rings.

"At least we grabbed some before they all vanished," Lilac shrugs. "Wish it wouldn't keep happening though."

"Well, we are in a later level, which is bound to be trickier," Carol explains.

"Makes sense."

The girls continue to another short sequence of cannons which takes them to the next section. The next couple of spiked tori are passed with ease, but the girls run into a surprise after riding the next elevator down: a fan that threatens to blow them off the elevator into mid‑air.

"I will _not_ be blown off this only to land in oil!" Lilac declares, running against the wind to remain in place.

"If I can catch it, I'll turn it‑" Carol begins.

The fan shuts off suddenly. Taken by surprise, both Lilac and Carol sprint forward at top speed, and slam straight into the wall ahead. The elevator they just ran onto then starts to descend, so when they peel away from the wall, they fall hard onto the elevator platform, then roll off and land on the platform below, rolling into the lamppost there. The elevator then settles level with the platform.

"I hate this game," Lilac sighs, flopping onto her back.

"No you don't," Carol corrects as she sits up.

"…yeah, you're right," Lilac admits. "It's easy to forget when you've just run face first into a wall, then fallen down an elevator shaft."

"When you're ready, there's another of those fun cannon things just there," Carol informs.

Lilac sits up and looks where Carol is pointing. "Those things are fun…"

"Well?"

"…if I must," Lilac relents, though she is smiling slightly.

It's another short ride through the series of cannons, to the bottom of a long oil slide. Quickly deciding to go the other way, they ride an elevator and cross a gap to get to another sequence of cannons, which the girls ride to the bottom of another oil slide. After passing another pair of spiked tori, they arrive at the top of an oil slide, and there's only one option.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Lilac sighs. "Is this really the only route?"

"Yeah," Carol confirms, equally unwilling to continue.

Lilac takes a deep, calming breath. "Screw it." Grabbing Carol's hand, Lilac leaps down onto the oil slide. Together, they ride the slide and the two that follow, then allow momentum to take them up the quarter pipe and onto the platform at the bottom of the third and final slide… where Lilac, her boots slick with oil, slips and falls on her tail.

"Serves you right," Carol teases, shaking what oil she can out of her fur, spraying Lilac in the process.

"…yeah, OK, I do deserve that," Lilac accepts, not even bothering to try and remove any oil.

Carol helps Lilac to her feet, and together, they proceed to the boss arena: two platforms over the ocean of oil, a large but jumpable gap separating them.

"I wonder what wacky contraption that madman has this time?" Lilac asks.

Her answer soon rises out of the oil: a one‑man submarine with a long round nose, a top fin, and seemingly no weaponry at all.

"Is that it?" Carol asks, pleasantly surprised. "This'll be easy!"

The girls waste no time in commencing their attack, scoring three hits before the sub sinks back below the surface. Lilac would have scored the fourth hit, but gets the timing wrong, and lands in the oil.

"Darn it!" Lilac exclaims as she jumps out the oil and onto the platform Carol is waiting on. "I should have got that hit in."

"You're all black again," Carol teases.

Lilac is about to reply until she notices something flying at them. "Jump!"

Her command comes just in time: both she and Carol just clear the disembodied scorpion tail arching over the platform spike‑first.

"Where did that come from?" Lilac asks.

"Same place as that?" Carol replies, pointing to a laser on top of a serpentine chain of spheres emerging from between the platforms.

"The madman's playing dirty," Lilac concludes, leaping a sudden laser bolt.

"Obviously," Carol agrees, ducking the second laser bolt.

"He'll pop up again, I just know‑" Lilac begins as the turret descends.

The turret fires once more on its way down. The laser bolt hits the platform and sends a wave of blue fire across it, catching both Lilac and Carol unawares.

" _Yow!_ " the girls cry in unison as the fire washes over them, Lilac's rings scattering into the oil ocean.

"Darn it!" Lilac exclaims. "Now I have no rings!"

"Then stop yappin' and get attackin'!" Carol commands, leaping into action against the sub as it rises again.

Between them, the girls score another four hits before the sub sinks out of reach again. This time, the girls duck as the scorpion tail flies over them, and then it's time to face the turret again.

"I'll try and distract it," Carol volunteers, leaping to the other platform. But the turret remains targeted on Lilac.

"Thanks anyway!" Lilac calls over as she dodges the first laser bolt. The turret descends to platform level, but Lilac is ready: she leaps over the wave of fire without difficulty. And once the third and final bolt is avoided, Lilac relishes scoring the winning hit on the madman's submarine.

"I hate that hedgehog!" the madman growls as his crippled sub sinks into the oil.

"I'm not particularly fond on you either," Lilac smirks as she watches the sub sink. "See you in the next zone!"

Lilac jogs over to the Egg Prison to find Carol has already broken it open. "Hey Jet," Carol greets.

"Jet?" Lilac asks, confused.

"Jet as in jet black," Carol explains. "Since you're currently more black than purple."

"But I- Oh, I see," Lilac replies. "Because my name's a colour."

"Yep. Was it funny?"

"Not really."

"Spoilsport," Carol teases.

"I wonder what the next z‑" Lilac begins.

The world fades to black.


	9. Metropolis Zone

**Act 1**

"And we're back to that tired joke again," Lilac sighs.

"Look on the bright side," Carol comforts. "We're getting closer to the end of the game, so there's less opportunity for that joke to happen."

"To be honest, I'm past caring," Lilac admits. "So, where are we now? I hear machinery… everywhere."

"It looks like a factory to me," Carol guesses. "Could be where all those robots are made."

"Then we shut it down," Lilac decides. "Come on."

"Aye‑aye, Miss Heropants!" Carol salutes cheekily.

Lilac opens her mouth to reply, then decides not to bother, instead setting off towards the first obstacle: a pair of steam valves that regularly pop up and unleash clouds of steam. The girls hop over the valves and continue into a spinning mesh drum.

"Woah!" Lilac exclaims as the drum spins her around. "I'm getting dizzy…"

"This is fun!" Carol chuckles, enjoying the ride more than Lilac.

A few moments later, Lilac drops out the far end of the drum, Carol following a moment later. Disoriented by the drum, they stumble into each other while trying to regain their balance, falling in a tangled heap.

"Ow," the girls groan in chorus.

"If there are any more of these, we go through one at a time," Lilac decides.

"You first," Carol agrees.

The girls untangle themselves from each other and spin dash up the quarter pipe to what appears to be an unjumpable gap.

"Well, that's that then," Lilac concludes. "We can't continue," she adds, sitting on what looks like a low silver table, which drops when she puts her weight on it, causing her to yelp in surprise. She then notices a platform emerge that will allow them to continue. "I meant to do that," she lies.

"If you say so," Carol teases.

The girls continue, using a steam vent like a spring to get to the next platform. As they land, a robot crab fires one of its pincers at them.

"Yow!" Lilac exclaims, narrowly avoiding the claw. "That was a close one!"

Carol breaks the robot open. "You have to be careful around these things," she advises. "However, they're not the worst badniks around here…"

"Badniks?" Lilac asks, confused.

"That's what these robots are called," Carol explains. "I'm being allowed a few more memories about this place than other zones, and what I'm remembering is this zone holds the three worst badniks in the entire game: Shellcracker, Slicer, and Asteron."

"I assume that was a Shellcracker?"

"Yep. And they're the _least_ annoying of the three."

"This zone's gonna hurt," Lilac sighs.

The girls set off again, but just a few seconds later, Lilac stops. "Carol, wait!"

Carol doesn't stop however: she runs onto a section of floor that's silver instead of green just as it rises, slamming into the ceiling and crushing the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune completely flat.

Lilac freezes in shock.

"Well, that was dumb," Carol admits as she lands beside Lilac. "Lilac? Are you OK?"

"I wish I hadn't seen that," Lilac admits quietly.

Carol watches the motion of the pistons that just crushed her for a few moments. "We can get past it with a spin dash," she assures. "In fact, I'm kinda embarrassed to be crushed by that," she adds, blushing.

Lilac swallows hard, then charges a spin dash alongside Carol. Together, at the right moment, they unleash the dashes, clearing the killer pistons with ease. After, they begin a long descent via several retracting platforms until they can descend no more, then continue along the route to find a brass‑coloured chamber just big enough to hold them both.

"What do we do here?" Lilac asks. "The pipe looks too small to get through."

"Not if we curl up," Carol concludes.

Lilac shrugs, then follows Carol's example, spin dashing gently into the chamber. However, instead of rolling into the pipe, the girls are held in the air briefly by an energy field before being teleported along the pipe, emerging at the other end on their feet.

"That is by far the _weirdest_ sensation I've ever felt," Lilac comments flatly as she emerges from the chamber.

"It was like… I can't describe it," Carol replies, her fur standing on end not from fear, but static electricity. "Yow!" she exclaims when one of her tails touches the metal floor, discharging all the built‑up static in a painful but harmless shock.

Lilac tries to keep a straight face, but she cannot resist a cheeky giggle. In response, Carol lays her tails on the floor, then touches Lilac's shoulder.

"Ow!" Lilac exclaims as the static built up in her fur discharges through Carol.

"Serves you right," Carol teases, poking her tongue out cheekily as she heads to another rotating drum.

After navigating the double‑length drum without bumping into each other, Lilac and Carol start ascending again, riding two sets of yellow bumpers as far as they go. After navigating another drum successfully, they ride one more set of yellow bumpers, then find themselves at the bottom of a giant bolt, an oversized nut large enough for both girls to stand on just a foot from the bottom end.

"Who's the architect that designed this place?" Lilac asks.

"And what were they smoking?" Carol adds.

"Well, there's only one way up," Lilac concludes. "Shall we?"

The girls jump onto the nut and begin to run, only to screw the nut down instead of up. The nut hits the bottom before the girls realise they're running the wrong way, and they run straight into the set of spikes right in front of them.

"That was dumb," Carol comments.

"Yep," Lilac agrees.

After recovering a handful of the scattered rings, the girls get back on the nut and run the correct way. As the nut ascends, Carol looks over her shoulder to see a starfish‑like robot emerge from the wall.

"Duck!" Carol commands.

Lilac ducks just in time to avoid a spike shooting over her. "What was that‽"

"An Asteron," Carol explains. "They get ya when ya least expect it."

The girls keep running, avoiding the next Asteron attack. As they avoid the third, Lilac looks up. " _STOP!_ " she cries in panic, trying desperately to slow the nut down.

Carol is taken by surprise, slipping and falling on her front. One revolution later, Lilac trips over Carol and ends up on her back, watching the spikes get closer and closer and closer…

Lilac screws her eyes shut and awaits the inevitable.

The inevitable doesn't come.

Slowly, Lilac opens one eye to see the tip of a spike just an inch away. "Carol! Help!" she requests, her voice shaking.

"We're an inch from death, aren't we?" Carol asks.

"You have no idea," Lilac confirms.

For a whole minute, the girls lay still, trying to think of a way out of their predicament.

Eventually, Carol has an idea. "Follow my lead," she requests as she starts to slowly shuffle.

It takes a few moments for progress to be noticeable, but eventually, the nut starts moving away from the spikes. Lilac relaxes a little, and soon starts helping Carol. Once a safe distance from the spikes, the girls collapse and rest, relief washing over them like a tidal wave.

"That… was scary," Lilac breathes.

"Be honest," Carol asks. "How far were we from death?"

"One inch."

"Be serious."

"I am. One inch."

Carol falls silent, not even daring to think about Lilac's answer.

A couple of minutes later, the duo decides to get moving again, hopping over to another nut on another huge bolt, then after a quick run through a dip, up a third bolt. However, they're forced to descend again as the labyrinthine route they're forced to follow winds its way around the zone. Eventually, the route leads them to the final obstacle.

"That's a long way down," Lilac observes, standing with her friend at the top of a very steep slope.

"It's the only way to go," Carol reminds.

"Are you sure it's the right way to go?"

"Can you see another way?"

Lilac looks around. "Nope."

Carol grabs Lilac's hand and jumps onto the slope, pulling her friend behind her. Together, they plummet down the shaft, sliding down the steep slopes that litter both sides. It's not long before Lilac's momentum takes her into a set of yellow bumpers that bounce her up and out of the shaft and onto a platform.

"Oof!" Lilac grunts as she lands on the platform. "That was quite a ride! Hope we don't have to‑" she continues, stopping when she realises Carol isn't with her. "Carol?"

"Still falling!" Carol yelps quickly as she falls past the platform.

Lilac sprints to the edge of the platform and watches Carol fall.

"Watch out!" Carol calls ten seconds later.

Lilac looks up and pulls back in time for Carol to fall past her again. "Huh?"

Another ten seconds later, Carol falls past a third time, saying "This is," finishing the sentence another ten seconds later with "Ridiculous!" as she passes Lilac a fourth time.

Lilac steps back from the ledge, deep in thought, trying to work out what's going on, when Carol falls past her a fifth time. However, this time the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune finally hits the yellow bumpers, and is catapulted onto the platform and into Lilac, pinning her to the floor.

"Glad to be out of that!" Carol greets.

"Go on then," Lilac sighs.

"Hm?"

"Just say it."

"…I should probably get off you now?"

"Yep."

"I walked right into that one…"

Carol rolls off Lilac, then spin dashes over a gap to the signpost that marks the end of the level, Lilac joining her a moment later.

"Do you think it's possible for a joke to stop being funny, yet continue to be pushed until it becomes funny again?" Carol asks.

"I hope not," Lilac replies. "We've flattened each other more than enough times already."

The world fades to black.

 **Act 2**

"Here we go again," Lilac states, wasting no time in setting off into the level.

Carol follows Lilac as they cross a large pit of molten metal and enter a teleport chamber after dispatching the Shellcracker guarding it. The teleport tube ejects the girls into a shaft lined with yellow bumpers which propel them to the top, where they land smoothly… and run straight into two curved blades fired directly at them.

"Damn Slicer!" Carol curses. "Every. Single. Time!"

While Lilac retrieves a handful of rings, Carol destroys the Slicer. But she doesn't stop there: Carol spreads debris far and wide, tearing the robot to pieces. Once finished, Carol stands panting, mentally daring just one piece of Slicer to move. So focussed she is on this that she doesn't notice Lilac standing beside her until the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog places a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump in surprise.

"Woah, relax!" Lilac commands sternly yet kindly.

"Sorry," Carol apologises, relaxing. "It's just… I _really_ hate Slicers."

"I never would have guessed," Lilac teases. "Come on."

The two friends continue, descending past a couple of ridiculously oversized cogs and across a small pit of molten metal before ascending again via nut and bolt. After passing a couple of steam vents, they extend a retracted platform to allow them to cross a large chasm via a conveyer belt, then resume their ascent via more nuts and bolts, a set of yellow bumpers, and a succession of steam valves.

After the third steam valve, the girls decide to rest a little while.

"How much further have we got to climb?" Lilac asks.

"Dunno," Carol answers. "But I get the feeling we've got quite some distance to go yet."

"The odd thing is, even though we're climbing, it doesn't feel like we're getting higher," Lilac replies.

"About that," Carol interjects. "Don't you think it's weird how, in the last level, I fell past you five times in that shaft?"

"How on Avalice is that even possible?" Lilac asks. "The only way that could happen is if there was a wormhole or something, and there was nothing like that."

"Remember we're in a game," Carol reminds. "The normal limits don't necessarily apply."

"Which means levels can only be so high, which means‑ Of course!" Lilac realises. "The level wraps vertically!"

Carol is about to ridicule the idea, then realises it's the only explanation that makes sense. "And that explains how we're climbing so much, yet it feels like we're not actually getting any higher."

"Exactly," Lilac confirms, a hint of smugness creeping through.

"Arrogance doesn't suit you," Carol teases.

"I know," Lilac admits. "Ready to continue?"

"Sure."

The two friends resume their ascent, smashing a Shellcracker on their way to bridging a pit of molten metal using two more oversized cogs. A set of yellow bumpers leads the girls to a switch which unveils a platform that allows them to continue, passing through a drum before climbing again via two nuts and bolts, Carol making quick and violent work of the Slicer between them.

Lilac hangs back as Carol shreds the next two Slicers, then rejoins her friend at the edge of the platform, below which is a long drop into molten metal. "Take a deep breath," she instructs calmly.

Carol breathes deeply. "I'm calm now," she assures.

"Good, as we have some precision platforming to do," Lilac informs, pointing above her.

Carol looks up. "Spears shooting out of platforms we have to jump across," she observes. "Do I need to say how little I want to be impaled?"

"So long as we're careful, we should be OK," Lilac assures.

"You first," Carol decides.

"Yeah… I walked into that one." Lilac jumps on one of the small platforms on a cable that's looped around two pulleys, and rides up to the three cubes with spears that emerge from each side in turn. After a couple of false starts (and a couple of jumps to remain close to the cubes), Lilac finally commits, only to be hit by the spear in the third cube, falling all the way back down to where Carol was watching.

"How did it go?" Carol asks cheekily after Lilac lands on her back, taking the chance to recover a couple of the scattering rings.

"Ow," Lilac comments flatly.

"Watch how it's done," Carol smirks. She rides up to the cubes, picks her moment… and gets hit by the third spear.

Lilac rolls out of the way as Carol falls. "So, that's how it's done, is it?" she teases after Carol lands.

Carol simply sighs in response.

After a few moments' rest, the girls have another go, both successfully making it to the next part of the ascent. After a teleport and a spin dash up a quarter pipe and wall, they ride further up via two sets of yellow bumpers, smash another Slicer, ride two cables, traverse one last drum, then ride a small set of bumpers to the final platform.

"Phew!" Lilac exclaims. "That was quite a climb!"

"It was a good workout," Carol comments. "Apart from getting speared."

"Come on," Lilac encourages. "Let's beat the boss, then we're out of here."

Lilac leads the way to the end of the level, but instead of finding a boss arena, she finds a signpost. "Well, _that's_ unexpected…"

"Ah," Carol murmurs as she joins Lilac beside the signpost.

"Maybe there's no boss for this zone?" Lilac asks in return.

"Prepare for a surprise," Carol advises.

The world fades to black.

 **Act 3**

"This zone has _three_ acts?" Lilac asks in disbelief.

"Yep," Carol confirms.

"Why?"

"No idea."

"There's a friend of yours up ahead," Lilac observes.

Carol looks to where Lilac is pointing. "Yay," she replies sarcastically when she spots the Slicer.

"I'll get this one," Lilac volunteers, grabbing three rings before smashing the Slicer. "High or low?" she asks Carol.

"High," Carol decides.

Using a platform mounted on two wheels, the friends cross the large gap, dispatch a Shellcracker, then pass through a teleporter. Dropping down a pair of oversized cogs, they spin dash past a pair of crushing pistons and up a wall, then get on a nut and ascend a lengthy bolt. Their ascent continues via another platform on wheels and a couple of springs, though their exit from the following drum goes wrong, and they fall down a pit. Luckily, the platform at the bottom drops to allow the girls to continue and ascend again via a pair of nuts and bolts.

However, on the next platform, the girls are in for a painful surprise: Lilac jumps for the three rings hovering in mid‑air and lands head‑first on a spear that shoots up from the floor. Carol fairs only slightly better, getting speared in her backside as she tries to recover some of the scattered rings.

The two friends sprint away from the spears as fast as they can.

"If I _ever_ meet the architect who designed this place, I'm gonna teach him a lesson!" Carol declares angrily.

"I'll be having a few choice 'words' with him too," Lilac agrees.

After taking a few moments to calm their nerves, the two friends continue their journey, using another platform on wheels to get to a higher platform. After another Slicer is sent to the scrapyard, they find another at the top of a set of yellow bumpers. Luck is on their side however, as they dispatch the robot before it attacks. Electing to keep their momentum going, the girls drop below a pair of oversized cogs, smash another Slicer, then drop past a nut instead of riding it down the bolt. At the bottom of the stepped slope they find themselves on, they hit the switch to retract a platform, then drop onto another platform that starts running along a series of small cogs.

"Is it just me, or are there more robots here?" Lilac asks.

"And almost every single one of them is a darn Slicer," Carol growls in confirmation.

"At least we have a bit of respite," Lilac comforts. "I do have one question though: if this is meant to be a factory, why haven't we seen anything actually being made?"

"With all the molten metal around here, it's more like a smelting plant," Carol opines.

The platform completes its journey. Lilac and Carol jump up to the platform just above them, then climb over a trio of cogs to get to a teleport, scrapping a Shellcracker in the process. After the teleport, they dispatch a Slicer at the bottom of a bolt far longer than any they'd traversed before.

"Woah…" Lilac breathes in nervous awe.

"The only reason someone would have built it that high is to waste time," Carol concludes. "So let's not waste time!" she adds, jumping on the nut.

Lilac hesitates.

"What's the matter?" Carol asks. "It's just a long climb."

"I know," Lilac replies. "It's just… it's really, _really_ high…"

"How many rooftops have you leaped between?" Carol smirks.

"One hundred seventy‑three," Lilac answers without even pausing.

"You… You kept count?" Carol asks, stunned.

"There's no other way up?"

"Nope."

Lilac takes a deep breath. "OK, let's do it to it," she decides, jumping on the nut.

"That's becoming a catchphrase," Carol teases as the girls start their ascent.

After a lengthy ascent, the duo finally reach the top. " _Another_ one?" they chorus.

"At least this one's shorter," Carol observes.

"I bet there's a Slicer at the top who'll hit us and send us all the way back down," Lilac sighs.

"Do you really think the people who made this game would be that mean?" Carol asks.

The two friends ascend the second bolt, jump off at the top… and get hit by a Slicer, causing them to fall back to the bottom of the bolt.

"Yes," Lilac answers. "And now we can't get up there."

Carol looks down the length of the much longer first bolt. "The nuts reset when you move far enough away!"

"You mean…" Lilac starts, tailing off nervously.

"Yep!" Carol confirms, jumping off the platform and falling all the way to the bottom of the first bolt.

 _This is going to hurt…_ Lilac takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, jumps off the platform… and lands safe and unhurt after the very long fall. "Whu… How does that work?"

"Videogame logic," Carol explains. "Now, let's go back up!"

At the top of the long ascent, Carol jumps onto the platform while Lilac waits on the nut, just in case. But it soon proves an unnecessary caution when Carol successfully reduces the Slicer to its component parts. After a quick teleport and a ride on a moving platform, Lilac and Carol arrive at the boss arena.

"This is a bit different," Lilac comments as the moustachioed madman descends, eight egg‑shaped capsules orbiting his craft in a manner erratic enough to ensure attacking him is very risky.

"You can attack him first," Carol decides, backing away as the madman continues to descend.

"No, no, you can go first," Lilac replies, also backing away.

By the time the madman descends to ground level, Lilac and Carol had backed up all the way to the invisible barrier constraining them to the boss arena. The madman then starts slowly advancing towards the girls.

"This boss actually feels dangerous," Lilac opines.

"We're still gonna send him packing, right?" Carol asks with determination.

"Obviously," Lilac assures.

The girls sprint towards the madman's machine and leap over it, just avoiding the egg capsules. A moment later, the madman turns and bears down on the girls again. Another leap, and the madman changes tactic, rising into the centre of the boss arena.

Lilac and Carol dive out of the way as the egg capsules suddenly accelerate and spread out, covering almost all the arena.

"He must have a weakness!" Lilac exclaims.

"He'll show it eventually," Carol assures.

As if on cue, the madman brings the egg capsules back to his machine, where they level out and orbit, exposing the bottom for attack. Lilac wastes no time in scoring a hit. But as she goes for a second, the madman rises out of reach, one of the eight egg capsules opening to reveal a balloon replica of the madman's machine. The remaining egg capsules resume their previous erratic movements.

"This is gonna take a while," Carol realises, popping the balloon.

The fight continues slowly but inexorably towards its conclusion. However, after popping the fourth balloon, Carol's patience is wearing thin. Noticing the remaining four egg capsules are spaced out enough to offer a narrow gap, the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune takes a calculated risk, timing a jump to get between the capsules and score a hit. The madman breaks his normal attack pattern and rises out of reach, and a fifth capsule opens into a balloon.

"That's more like it!" Carol exclaims happily as she pops the balloon. However, her next attempt to speed things up is less successful: she strikes one of the three remaining capsules, and is knocked back, landing on her tails.

"Darn it!" Carol exclaims, leaping to her feet and going straight in for the attack again. In her haste, she mistimes the jump, and hits an egg capsule… only to pass right through it and hit the madman's machine instead.

"How'd you do that?" Lilac asks in surprise, popping the balloon as Carol stops flashing.

"Dunno," Carol admits. "But it's darn useful!"

With just two egg capsules left, Lilac finds it easy to get hit number seven, with the eighth following soon after. But the madman's machine doesn't explode as expected. Instead, he waits until the last balloon is popped before descending quickly down the side of the arena, firing powerful laser blasts.

"Yow!" Lilac exclaims as she is struck by a laser blast. But rather than recover her spilt rings, she takes advantage of her temporary invulnerability to attack again.

The ninth hit proves to be the final hit: the madman's machine is riddled with explosions, disabling the laser. The madman flees, shouting "I hate that hedgehog!"

"That was exhausting!" Carol sighs with relief.

"But we prevailed, and that's what matters," Lilac agrees, heading to the Egg Prison.

Carol catches up just as Lilac breaks the Egg Prison open. "I wonder where we'll be next?"

"No idea," Lilac replies. "But I can't help but feel it'll be the most thrilling zone yet."

The world fades to black.


	10. Sky Chase to the Wing Fortress

" _This isn't what I had in mind!_ " Lilac cries, clinging on to the top wing of a red biplane as tightly as she can.

"What are you talking about? This is _awesome!_ " Carol replies from the pilot's seat.

" _Not from up here it isn't!_ " Lilac counters.

"Afraid of heights?" Carol teases.

"Of course not!" Lilac retorts. _Falling to my death, on the other hand…_

"Heads up!" Carol warns. "Bogeys, twelve o'clock!"

Lilac looks up to see three red plane robots with sharp beaks as noses flying directly at the biplane. With a yelp of surprise, she throws herself flat on the wing, allowing the plane robots to pass harmlessly overhead.

"More coming!" Carol alerts. "You're gonna need to pop a few of 'em!"

"You gotta be kidding me!" Lilac calls back.

"Don't worry, I won't let you fall!" Carol promises.

Lilac swallows hard. _OK, let's do it to it._

Over the next minute or so, Lilac and Carol battle through an armada of flying robots consisting of not just the red plane robots, but also bulbous bombers and turtle‑shaped hovering platforms that shoot energy projectiles. Lilac does her best to swallow her fear and bust as many badniks as she can, but more often than not, Carol's surprisingly capable flying skills are relied on more.

Eventually, after a seemingly endless wave of attackers, the robots stop coming.

"Phew!" Lilac sighs in relief, allowing herself to relax. "Thank the Ancients that's over!"

Carol's ears twitch. Curious, she looks over the side of the cockpit. "Erm… Lilac, there's a _massive_ airship below us, and it's getting closer."

Despite herself, curiosity gets the better of Lilac, and she carefully moves to the wing tip to get a look. "Woah…"

The girls watch as the airship ascends past them, propelled upwards by banks of rocket thrusters.

"That must be the madman's flying fortress," Lilac concludes.

"How do you know that?" Carol asks.

"Who else would build something like that?" Lilac asks rhetorically.

"Uh‑oh," Carol remarks. "More badniks."

Lilac returns to the centre of the wing, ready for next wave of enemies. Mercifully, it's a much smaller wave, and the girls make it through unscathed.

"Think you can catch up to that thing?" Lilac asks, referring to the airship.

The world fades to black.

* * *

"Looks like I don't have to," Carol observes, noticing that they're now directly behind the airship, and approaching what looks like a landing platform at the tail of it.

"Look out!" Lilac cries, ducking as several laser bolts are fired at the biplane.

Carol tries to avoid the lasers, but it's too late: one of them hits the biplane.

"I can't hold her!" Carol cries. "Lilac, jump!"

"But‑"

" _Just do it!_ "

Lilac jumps from the wing and lands on the end of the rear landing platform, where she watches Carol and the biplane begin to plummet, eventually disappearing through the cloud layer. "Carol…" _Wait, why am I worrying? She'll appear in a moment or two._

Lilac looks to the sky, waiting for Carol to arrive. However, after a minute, there's no sign of her. _Guess I must do this alone… Carol, wherever you are, I hope you're OK._

* * *

"Stupid plane! Level out!" Carol grunts, desperately trying to regain control of the stricken biplane. But it's no use: the plane continues to plummet, smoke pouring from its damaged engine, the ground rushing up to meet Carol with terminal violence. However, the wildcat‑cum‑kitsune doesn't surrender, and eventually wrestles control just in time to land without crashing, the biplane skidding to a halt abruptly.

"Ow," Carol sighs, relieved she's safe. "I'm gonna be feelin' that in the mornin'."

After a few moments to calm her nerves, Carol's thoughts turn to Lilac. _I hope she's alright up there, and that she'll be able to figure out what to do. It's all up to her now. Unless…_

Carol hops out the biplane and looks around her improvised landing site. "Wow, that's a _lot_ of scrap metal I missed! I wonder if there's anything useful here…" After a couple of minutes rummaging through the scrap, Carol finds a liquid‑fuel rocket booster: a quick check shows it's still full. "Who throws something like this away?" Suddenly, an idea occurs. "I know just what to do with it!"

A couple of minutes later, the rocket booster is attached to the bottom of the biplane, and linked to the plane's controls. Confident the rocket will work, Carol quickly repairs the propeller engine (the damage thankfully limited to the intake manifold), then clambers aboard and takes off, setting course for the Wing Fortress.

"You don't see that bit in the game!"

* * *

Meanwhile, on the Wing Fortress itself, and unaware of Carol's fate, Lilac decides to stop wasting time. _OK, you can do this. You've done solo missions before: this is no different. Well, apart from being in a fake world and a mile above the ground. And with me being a hedgehog instead of a dragon. Oh, who am I kidding? This is_ totally _different! It couldn't be more different if it was an alien warlord trying to steal the Kingdom Stone!_ Lilac takes a deep breath. _OK girl, calm down. You may not have dragon powers, but you still have your training. Use it, and you'll be fine._

With renewed resolve, Lilac steps onto a launcher, is propelled at high speed along the length of the landing platform, and slams face‑first into the fortress's rear bulkhead. A moment later, she slides down the bulkhead and lands in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a short access shaft. _Ow…_

Lilac picks herself up, dusts herself down, and continues following the accessway across, down, and back again. After floating over a couple up large fans, she lands on a platform just in time to avoid an egg being fired at her. _What the… Was that an egg?_ A quick look ahead reveals the shooter: a chicken robot in a turret. Stifling a giggle, Lilac pops the badnik, the innocent creature trapped inside hopping away happily, right off the edge of the platform and into mid‑air. _Did it just jump to its death? Why would it‑ oh, wait, game logic. So, it's probably going to be fine. I hope._

Lilac reaches the end of the platform and halts in total disbelief. _No way. This cannot be the way I must go, surely? Hanging onto rails below a massive airship a mile in the air, rocket engines just feet away? Who in their right mind would dare do this?_ Lilac takes a deep breath to steel herself. _But I have no choice._

Lilac jumps and grabs the first rail, then makes the mistake of looking down. With a squeak of terror, she screws her eyes shut and hugs the rail. _Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. But there's no other choice._ Slowly, Lilac opens her eyes. Doing her best to ignore the colossal and fatal drop, she spots a moving platform getting closer. _At the right moment…_ Lilac picks her moment: to her great relief, she lands square in the centre of the platform, which then carries her past the rocket exhausts. _Wow, that's hot!_

Past the rockets, Lilac jumps to the next rail, then rides another platform to a third rail. Two more moving platforms later, Lilac is back on the fortress itself, where she takes the chance to recover her wits. _Never felt so afraid… Heart's doing two hundred a minute… I am an_ idiot _for trying that!_

After calming herself enough to drop her heart rate to around one hundred twenty, Lilac rides another moving platform to the next level up. Forced to head back towards the rear of the ship by a brace of large propellers, she dispatches three more chicken robots with ease, the sole turret she passes unable to react to her presence in time to attack her. Soon, Lilac arrives at the next major obstacle: a quartet of thin platforms that alternate between vertical and horizontal. _Another section where, if I fail, I plummet to my death?_ Lilac peeks over the edge of the platform. _No, but if I mess this up, I'd have to do that bit under the ship, and I'm_ never _doing that again!_

Lilac watches the platforms alternate until she's sure of their pattern. Confident she'll succeed, she hops from one to the next, and reaches the top of the ship's hull. _At last! Relative safety!_ Turning back towards the front of the ship, Lilac quickly comes across a lamppost, which she hugs tightly. _I won't have to do any of that again! I love you, lamppost._ With renewed calmness, Lilac continues towards the front of the ship, remaining in good spirits as she dispatches chicken bots and avoids turrets. Eventually, she reaches an area about halfway up the ship that's still under construction. Unable to proceed further, Lilac explores other options, and finds a way into the ship itself. _About time!_

The next moment, Lilac is blown out a side hatch and down the side of the ship. Screaming in terror, Lilac grabs desperately at anything she can get a hold of, eventually grabbing the edge of a silver panel that gives way after just a few seconds. Lilac manages to grab another panel, but that also gives way, as does a third. But luck decides to favour Lilac when she's blown safely back inside the ship.

Lilac lies on her back, panting heavily, her eyes wide with terror, her limbs shaking as the adrenaline slowly filters out of her bloodstream. For a full minute, coherent thoughts refuse to form as her brain attempts to process what just happened. Eventually though, Lilac calms down enough to return to her senses. _That was… That was terror incarnate._

Lilac slowly gets to her feet and moves to the rear of the platform she's on. _Looks like I'll have to stay in front of the propellers, unless I want to repeat most of this level. And that's not happening. So, it's the conveyors or nothing._

Lilac rides the conveyors down to find a series of seven hatches along the side of the ship that regularly open and close that she must use to continue through the level. _Gotta go fast: if I don't, I die._ Lilac watches the hatches as much as possible while hopping from platform to platform on the conveyor, then picks her moment. Hopping from hatch to hatch, landing on the first just as it opens, Lilac makes it across the long distance just in time, where she is greeted with her new most favourite thing in all existence: a lamppost with a yellow base and a red orb on top.

Lilac hugs the lamppost with all the tenderness one would hug an old friend. "I'm so happy you're here," she murmurs. A few moments later, Lilac realises how weirdly she's behaving. Unable to hold back a deep blush, even though there's no‑one around, Lilac lets go of the lamppost, clears her throat, and immediately walks onto a launcher that sends her flying across a gap.

Quick reactions allow Lilac to avoid hitting a launcher that would have sent her straight back. She then allows momentum to carry her to a set of four platforms orbiting a central point, where she takes a moment to get her bearings. _Well, I'm going in the right direction. Also, the front part of this ship isn't connected to the back part? How does that even work? I'll ask Carol later. I hope she's OK._

Mercifully for Lilac, the route to the front of the ship is relatively simple, and free from danger, although the route is a little convoluted. At the front, Lilac grabs the lamppost and runs a full circle around it before continuing to a hatchway. _This must be the way to the cockpit._ Lilac breaks the hatch open and drops into the ship.

"So, you finally made it," the madman greets from the far end of the corridor. "I've been waiting for you, rodent!"

" _I'm not a rodent!_ " Lilac yells back. " _I'm a dragon!_ "

"You look more like a hedgehog to me, _rodent_ ," the madman retorts.

 _I forgot I'm a hedgehog… How could I forget that?_ "I'm still not a rodent!" Lilac insists. "I'm an erinaceid!"

"Whatever you say, _rodent_ ," the madman mocks.

 _This is going nowhere._ "Why do you keep attacking us?" Lilac demands.

"Because you keep interfering with my plans," the madman answers tersely.

"If you didn't trap innocent creatures in those robots, we wouldn't have to interfere!" Lilac declares.

"That is but a small part of a far grander plan," the madman boasts.

"I'll take this airship down too if I have to!" Lilac promises.

The madman laughs at the idea, surprising Lilac. "You still don't understand the greatness of my plan," he mocks.

"Humour me," Lilac demands.

"My plan is to subjugate the world using my greatest creation, my battle fortress space station, the _Death Egg!_ " the madman informs. "Everyone will bow to the greatness of Doctor Eggman!"

Lilac blinks a few times, then bursts into laughter. "Your name is _Eggman?_ " she sniggers.

"Silence, rodent!" Eggman commands.

"If you say so… Eggman!" Lilac chuckles.

"Just for that, my first target will be that brat of a fox who follows you around!" Eggman promises.

Lilac stops laughing immediately. "No‑one threatens Carol!" Sash barks, charging directly at Eggman, only to hit a powerful forcefield.

"Foolish rodent," Eggman mocks. "Do you think I would leave myself undefended?"

" _Drop the force field!_ " Sash demands.

"I have a better idea," Eggman replies. "Since you are now trapped, let's play a game I like to call 'Rodent versus Laser'."

Sash looks behind her to see she is indeed trapped between two forcefields. _This isn't good._ A noise from above draws her attention upwards, where she sees a dome emerge from the ceiling and start to move back and forth between the forcefields. A moment later, a hatch opens, and three small platforms with spikes on the bottom emerge and begin moving erratically between the forcefields, covering almost the full height of the corridor. _This is very not good._

"Say goodbye, rodent!" Eggman gloats as he watches.

"Not a chance!" Sash retorts, a plan of attack forming in her head.

The dome stops moving, and twin shutters retract to expose a smaller orange dome underneath. As the sound of the laser charging builds, Sash takes the opportunity. Using the small platforms, she leaps up to the orange dome, striking it solidly. Before she can score a second hit, the laser fires, Sash rolling out the way just in time.

The shutters close and the dome starts moving again, stopping several seconds later. This time, Sash is better prepared, and she scores two hits before the laser fires.

"No, this cannot be!" Eggman protests.

But Sash isn't listening. Allowing her Red Scarf training to surface, she scores another two hits when the dome stops a third time, then destroys it with three rapid hits on the fourth. The dome and the platforms explode, causing the forcefields to fail.

"Now to deal with‑" Sash begins, stopping when she sees Eggman has disappeared. _Where did he go?_ Sash walks to where Eggman was to find that he has descended a lift shaft and disappeared. _You're not gonna get away from me that easily!_

Sash drops down the shaft and lands on the platform below to see Eggman in a shuttlecraft, about to take off. " _Stop right there Eggman!_ "

Eggman ignores Sash and launches the shuttlecraft.

" _Get back here!_ " Sash yells, running to the end of the platform. But it's too late: Eggman makes his escape.

Just then, a familiar red biplane appears in front of Lilac. "Need a lift?" Carol asks, a massive grin splitting her face in two.

"Carol!" Lilac exclaims with relief, jumping onto the top wing. "So glad to see you're alright!"

"Likewise," Carol replies. "Now hold on: I gave this old crate a bit of a boost."

Lilac takes a firm hold of the wing. "Let's do it to it!"

Carol sighs in amusement, and fires the rocket booster.

The biplane surges forward, Lilac clinging on as hard as she can. Soon, the girls catch Eggman's shuttlecraft, but the doctor counters by accelerating. With speeds matched, both craft gain altitude together.

"He's heading into space!" Carol concludes.

"I know!" Lilac replies. "Keep pushing!"

"But this plane won't work in space!" Carol informs. "You'll have to jump!"

"But‑"

"You have to jump, otherwise we can't finish the game!" Carol explains.

 _Darn it!_ Lilac takes a deep breath, jumps as hard as she can, and grabs hold of Eggman's shuttle. _This is insane!_

"Go get him, Lilac!" Carol calls, the biplane unable to climb higher. "And come back to me," she adds quietly, watching the shuttlecraft climb into orbit.

Suddenly, all of Carol's memories of the game come flooding back. The sudden influx of information briefly overwhelms her, but she regains control quickly. "Finally!" she exclaims. "I can remember‑"

Carol's blood turns to ice. " _Lilac! The final boss takes_ twelve _hits!_ " she yells desperately.

But Lilac is too far away to hear.

The world fades to black.


	11. The Death Egg

"So, this is the _Death Egg_ ," Lilac thinks aloud. _This place gives me the creeps. It's all so metallic and oppressive. Cold too… or is that just me?_ Lilac looks around her. _No rings… And I only have two lives. I am going to have to be so careful here…_

With trepidation, Lilac walks down the corridor, wary of possible traps. _One thing I can say for certain now: Eggman built that chemical plant. What I'm seeing here matches that disgusting zone perfectly. At least this place doesn't stink._ Lilac sniffs the air. _Of rancid chemicals. It does however stink of… clogged air filters? Something nasty anyway. And it's stinging my nose. I bet there's no air‑con._

Lilac reaches the end of the corridor without triggering any traps, then hops down into the room at the end. The door to the corridor closes with a loud clang, trapping Lilac in the room. _Well, I walked into that one. Literally._

The sound of rocket thrusters causes Lilac to look up. What she sees sends a chill up her spine: a steel robot replica of her hedgehog self, except larger and male. The robot hedgehog lands at the opposite end of the room, spins its spines like a sawblade, and directs a piercing stare at Lilac.

"I guess you're not here to talk," Lilac concludes.

The robot curls into a ball and charges directly at Lilac, who leaps over the robot with ease.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Lilac concludes, scoring two quick hits.

The robot responds by leaning forward and boosting across the room. Lilac leaps the first charge, scores a hit on the robot's return charge, and another when the robot turns back to face her.

"Hit me of you can!" Lilac challenges.

The robot curls into a ball again. Lilac prepares to jump, but instinct keeps her feet on the ground. The robot charges, then leaps into the air, passing right over Lilac before landing and coming to a halt. Lilac scores another two hits before the robot can attack again, returning to its original roll along the floor.

"Time to end this!" Lilac declares.

When the robot hedgehog uncurls from its attack, Lilac scores the final two hits. Defeated, the robot hedgehog's entire body is riddled with explosions. A second later, the robot detonates violently, scattering shrapnel and components around the room.

"That was a blast," Lilac quips, brushing bits of metal from her fur. "We should do it again some time."

"Curse you, infernal rodent!" Eggman shouts from beyond the far end of the room.

Lilac turns at the sound of the madman's voice. "You can't stop me now," she asserts. "I have seen off everything you've thrown at me, and now I will take down this space station! Starting with _you!_ "

Lilac charges directly at Eggman, who turns and runs surprisingly fast for someone so obese. Lilac catches up, but not before Eggman has run into the next room and jumped inside an open cockpit. The cockpit dome closes just as Lilac arrives, the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog sliding to a halt just inches away. "Get out here and fight!"

"As you wish," Eggman agrees. "Get a load of this!"

The floor starts to shake as the dome Eggman is hiding in rises. Lilac staggers back in surprise as she watches a colossal walking mech built in Eggman's image emerge from the floor. "Wh… What is that?" she gasps.

"Behold the _Egg Destroyer Battlesuit!_ " Eggman gloats, safe inside the massive mech. "Say your goodbyes, hedgehog!"

"Not a chance!" Lilac replies defiantly.

"Your futile defiance would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic!" Eggman growls as he advances the _Egg Destroyer Battlesuit_ towards Lilac, it's arms held with spiked hands guarding the only weak spot: the chest.

Lilac backs away, frantically trying to work out a plan of attack. _Jumping over those hands is a risk I'm not willing to take without rings. I'd go under them, but something tells me that's asking for death._ Lilac takes a deep breath. _I'm just going to have to risk it._ Lilac watches the Battlesuit as it advances, noting how the arms move back and forth. Soon, she spots a brief window of opportunity. _I must get the timing just right…_

Lilac picks her moment, leaps, and strikes the Battlesuit square in the chest.

 _Yes!_ Lilac lands and prepares to attack again. However, the Battlesuit suddenly stops advancing. Eggman moves the suit half a step back, then engages the rocket thrusters fixed to the suit's back, ascending into the higher reaches of the battle arena. Lilac watches as the Battlesuit positions itself directly over her. _Surely not…_

Lilac dashes back and forth, but Eggman keeps the Battlesuit directly over her. After several seconds, the Battlesuit pauses, before slamming hard into the floor, attempting to crush Lilac underfoot. But Lilac is too nimble, and she rolls out of the way just in time.

"Stand still, rodent!" Eggman demands.

"Hit me if you can!" Lilac taunts.

"Challenge accepted!" Eggman fires one of the spiked hands directly at Lilac, followed a moment later by the other.

"Yow!" Lilac exclaims, barely avoiding the flying hand. "Gyah!" she adds, barely ducking the second.

With both hands back on the Battlesuit, Eggman ascends once more, again tracking Lilac as she dashes back and forth. This time however, Lilac is ready for the suit's landing, and scores her second hit as the suit squats to absorb the impact.

With a savage growl, Eggman advances on Lilac again, the dragon‑cum‑hedgehog timing another two hits before the madman ascends once more. Lilac scores the fifth hit when the Battlesuit lands, dodges the hands, and scores the sixth hit after Eggman fails yet again to crush her. Another two hits during Eggman's next advance, and Lilac feels like she can relax.

But the Egg Destroyer Battlesuit keeps coming.

"Wh… What‽" Lilac gasps. "I hit you eight times! You should be defeated!"

"Your naïvety is more pathetic than your futile defiance!" Eggman gloats, ascending once more.

 _This cannot be happening…_ Lilac manages to avoid being crushed, but her morale is shattered, and she misses her chance to score another hit. _Is this even beatable? Am I going to die here?_ Lilac avoids the spiked hands. _Eight hits… It's_ always _been eight‑ Wait… It took_ nine _to beat him in that factory place! It's not always eight! I can still do this!_

With renewed resolve, Lilac avoids being crushed, and immediately scores hit number nine. _So, it's not nine._ Lilac scores a tenth hit as the Battlesuit advances. _More than ten then._ And another hit. _Eleven and counting._

"You'll never defeat me!" Eggman boasts, ascending once more.

 _We'll see about that._ Lilac waits for the Battlesuit to begin its descent, then rolls out of the way, leaps high into the air, and slams into the suit's chest with all the might she can summon.

The Egg Destroyer Battlesuit collapses, explosions rippling across its surface.

"Eggman, consider your tail well and truly‑" Lilac begins.

The _Death Egg_ starts to quake alarmingly, explosions spreading from the Battlesuit into the space station's superstructure.

"What on Avalice‽" Lilac exclaims.

"You'll never get out of here alive!" Eggman gloats.

 _I gotta get out of here! But can I leave Eggman to die?_ Lilac pauses the briefest of moments. _Why am I asking myself that? This is a videogame, and I've just beaten the final boss! I'm outta here!_

Lilac charges a spin dash and unleashes it down a corridor, explosions following her down its entire length. At the end, Lilac breaks through the hatch, and flies out into space.

 _Well done Lilac, now you'll burn up on re‑entry instead._

The world fades to white.


	12. Home

Lilac stirs with a long drawn‑out groan. _That was one weird dream… Why do I feel like I've been disassembled and reassembled?_ Slowly, Lilac opens her eyes. At first, her vision is just a dull blur, but after several seconds, it starts to focus. _This isn't my bed. Not unless my mattress turned into wood overnight. Wait… This is the den!_

Lilac snaps to full alertness, rolling onto her back and sitting up. _That wasn't a dream: we really were sucked into a videogame!_ "Carol‽"

"…five more minutes…"

Lilac looks over to see her friend sprawled on the floor beside her. "Take your time," she smiles, relieved. _I need a glass of water._ Lilac pushes herself stiffly to her feet, then heads into the kitchen, where she opens the fridge with a hair whip while taking a glass from the cupboard.

Carol is woken suddenly by the sound of a glass smashing. "Lilac?" she asks, leaping to her feet. "Are you OK?"

A moment later, Carol is knocked flat to the floor by an ecstatic Lilac. " _I'm a dragon again!_ " the latter cries with joy, hugging her friend tightly.

"You're squashing me," Carol grunts, struggling a little to breathe.

"Sorry," Lilac apologises, loosening her grip, but refusing to let go. "I'm just so happy to be me again!"

"Really?" Carol quips sarcastically. "I never would have guessed. Now, can you get off me?"

"Huh? Oh, of course." Lilac breaks the hug, gets back on her feet, and helps Carol to hers.

"So, you beat the final boss, huh?" Carol asks.

"Yep!" Lilac grins.

"Seriously‽" Carol asks in surprise. "Do you know how many times I died to that thing? And then you go and do it on your first try! That's so unfair!"

"I'll give you a few pointers," Lilac teases.

Carol makes to reply, but decides not to bother. "I'm gonna miss having two tails," she sighs, looking over her shoulder at her single feline tail.

"But you're glad to be back to your own self, right?" Lilac asks.

"Obviously!" Carol grins.

Lilac yawns. "What's the time?" she asks rhetorically, checking her watch. "Wow, it's late! We better get to bed."

"You're not curious why we got sucked into a game?" Carol inquires.

"Good point." Lilac walks over to what remains of the console. "Oh…"

"What's wrong?"

"I don't think we're going to get any answers from this," Lilac informs, showing Carol the mass of twisted molten plastic, wispy blue smoke emerging from what used to be the game cartridge.

"Aw man!" Carol sighs, sad that her console and game are no more. "Now I'm gonna have to get another one."

"Out of interest, where did you get this one?"

"Well…"

Lilac fixes Carol with a disapproving stare.

"Look, he told me it was a great deal, and you know we don't have a lot of money, and I didn't think anything bad would happen," Carol explains in a hurry. "How was I to know it'd be booby‑trapped?"

"Who sold it to you?" Lilac presses.

"I uh… didn't get a name," Carol admits sheepishly.

Lilac sighs in frustration. "We'll talk about this tomorrow, but right now, I just want to go to bed."

"Aren't we going to the Kingdom Stone shrine tomorrow?" Carol asks.

"That's why I want to go to bed," Lilac explains. "We'll talk about it after, when we're back home."

"Do you think we should delay going to the shrine a couple of days?" Carol replies. "It's just, all those Shuigang helicopters flying around, and all those rumours about robots, it may not be safe."

"We'll be fine," Lilac assures. "It's not like some alien warlord is going to crash‑land and cause a war by stealing the Kingdom Stone, is it?"

"You're right," Carol admits, her concern forgotten. "G'night!" she chimes, heading to the bedroom.

"G'night." With Carol gone, Lilac places the ruined games console by the front door, gets a drink of water, then heads off to bed herself.

* * *

The next morning, Lilac and Carol head to the Kingdom Stone shrine, diverting near the edge of Dragon Valley to aid a downed pilot, beginning a three‑day adventure that culminates in them saving the planet from an alien warlord who crash‑landed and caused a war by stealing the Kingdom Stone.


End file.
